An update from Thanksgiving to Christmas

We finally made it out of Elkhart Indiana on December 9 at night after they finished our RV remodel.  One that was supposed to take 2 weeks took a month.  A cabinet that was supposed to be one priced turned out to be 3 times more.  They were supposed to install it in 2 hours and it took 3 days.  Okay enough of my ranting.  We're done finally and head out after a little snow falls the previous days, south to Indianapolis.  Not a great town in my opinion but we wanted to do the INDY 500 museum.  So we stopped and became WALMARTIANS for a night.  Which means we stay in a Walmart parking lot so we don't have to find an RV park and pay just to sleep.  Hey we can live self contained for a good 3-5 days if we have water.

Anyway finished in Indianapolis and travel south to Louisville, Kentucky.  A town rich with history and beautiful architecture.  We truly loved this place.  We thought this was where Tom's Great Grandfather had lived but after some research at the Library come to find out he actually loved in Newport which is north and east of where we were.  It was interesting to do some genealogical work on finding out more about his family though.

We visited Churchill Downs, Kentucky Derby Museum, The Brown Hotel, and Jim Beam distillery.  I highly recommend all of these especially Jim Beam because if you do a tour you get 2 shots after the tour of special label Jim Beam.  On the cold day we were there warmed us right up.  

Another perk while we were there was visiting with a long ago friend of mine from Jr high and high school, she calls Louisville home.

After being there for a week we heading South yesterday toward Nashville.  We thought this would be a good place for Christmas.  Staying at Walmart again we dropped anchor and took off to look around a little and found this place to be a bit of a tourist trap.  All the shows are booked or dark for Christmas so there's not much to do.  So we will be taking off here in a few hours and then heading south and east to Chattanooga then on to Atlanta.

Hopefully more to update you all on with some pictures when we get to Florida.

Still in Indiana...What joy.

Just as the title says we are still in Indiana.  The weather is turning rainy and cold with a chance of snow showers this week.   The advantage to this place we are at is that it has a large area our dogs can run around in and explore.  We can't just let them run around, even though it's fenced, because there is a gate which stays open.  So we watch them but they can be off leash.  For anyone who know me you know how important our kids.

Anyway, we had a great Thanksgiving and hope yours was terrific too.  I found a place in South Bend Indiana to have dinner.  This is a picture of it.

It's a 40 room mansion which has been an eating establishment for over 100 years.  We had dinner upstairs in one what we will call guest bedrooms.  It was beautiful and we sat  right next to the fireplace.  The buffet was traditional Thanksgiving.  A gem to find in this area. 

We wrangled Best Buy on Friday to find a new surround sound and got out of there before any incidents.  People really get enraged at this time of year.  Brings out the best and worst in people.    Which I truly don't understand all the gifts and stuff people have to buy just to put it in storage and never use it.  A gift of time spent and a great conversation would suffice for me.  

Now we have spent the weekend doing our own projects for this remodel.  Installed new TV's, took out old electronics, fixed faucets,  and partially repaired leveling jack switches.  I saw partially because we can't get two to work and it is raining so no laying under the bus right now. 

In the hunt for organic food which my diet requires to stay away from corn I have found it difficult to find.  This is making for challenges as we travel.  But we make the best of it. 

Until next time friends...Be well. 

Turkey day in Indiana ??? Who knew !!!

Currently we are in Elkhart, Indiana, a small town in the extreme north part of the state.  We are literally 3 miles from Michigan.    Getting some remodeling done to the coach.  Taking out some old putting in some new.  It's cold, rainy and some snow is coming.

Didn't see spending Thanksgiving in Indiana but if that's what happens we roll with it.  We have a place to eat tomorrow which is in an old historical house just east of Notre Dame.  Really looking forward to that.   There's not much else to update on at this point.  Elkhart is kind of a slow paced place.  Lot's of Amish riding around in their buggies.  Kind of neat but makes for a little traffic jam on a two lane highway.

Be well friends.
Happy Thanksgiving
Lorraine, Tom and the kids.....Coffee, Sam, Kona and Circles.

Sorry a little in between update

We stopped in the Des Moines area of Iowa prior to going to Illinois.  This is where my family is from.  I have a wonderful Uncle and Aunt to let us stay at their home, (actually in the alley behind it).  They hooked us up to water and power and we did just great.

Spending a week there to visit my extended family was wonderful.  In addition we got to see my Mom before she left for her new home in California.  Getting up there in her years (83) she has some memory loss and needs help.

We got to see some family on my father's side and meet up with a cousin who I am pleased to be chatting with now via messages on Facebook.  All in all a great trip.  Even got to go to the bakery in town and pig out on pastry.  I will be working out extra to get rid of.....

Cooling our heels in Colorado

We arrived in Colorado around Oct 9th.  Had a bit of a hick up in Wyoming so we had to leave a little early.   Our generator stopped working properly and since we were dry camping, which means we didn't have hook ups where we were it was necessary to get to a repair shop.  So we packed up and headed out on a trip through Wyoming south to Colorado just East of Denver.

The generator was a simple repair and maintenance so we were good to go.  Found a great park in the middle of the city called Cherry Creek State park.  It was beautiful, they had a dog park for the girls to run and play in stream.  I probably loved it more then they did.   We stayed in Colorado until Nov 2nd so we could hang out with Tom's adopted son Kirk, who was a childhood friend of Tom's son Pete.  It was great to see him.  Kirk decorates for Halloween and has a haunted house for the neighborhood kids.  We dressed up to scare the kids.  Some cried, some loved it, and some thought we were crazy.  All in all it was fun.

I am dressed as a scary mime with my lips sewn shut.  I pulled the kids in from the street and led them to the haunt.

Tom was a dead zombie surgeon.  He did a great job in his make up.

Kirk sat in the box and remained still until kids walked by and then he grabbed them.

The scary guys horsing around.

 We got some snow while we were in there.  An early storm brought about 8" of snow one night.  It was wonderful from my stand point being a California girl.  I am sure the locals hated it coming so early

As a bonus I was able see a long lost friend from High School who I had not seen since graduation.  It was so fun to see her and meet her wonderful family.  We spent an afternoon with them and got to catch up on all that has happened to us since high school.

After our lengthy stay in Colorado we started heading East.....

The Wyoming Leg of the Adventure

I am in love with Wyoming.  This is such a beautiful place.  If you have not come to Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons or Jackson Hole Wyoming you must make a trip here.

During our time in Cody, Wyoming we visited Yellowstone, the first visit we left at 6:30 in the morning and drove to the North end of the park from the East side traveled south through the park.  This leg took us about 12 hours with all the stops for photos on the way.  The temps in the park when we arrived were a chilly 23 degrees.  Once in the park we saw the Bison and a Bald Eagle.

It was overwhelming the beauty and unspoiled land.  We were a bit disappointed in the burn areas which looked bad.  From what we are to understand lightning strikes cause the forests to burn and the park service allows it to burn itself out.  Which then creates new habitats for animals and replenishes the soils.  In addition, there are seed pods from the trees which cannot open without intense heat and the fires allows these pods to open and then new trees sprout up.   We finally got back to the RV around 9:00 p.m. and opted to take the next day off because we were so tired.

In town we found a cute little Italian Restaurant which was fabulous and family owned.  The owner was an old Rodeo guy.  We sat next to two guys who just been out hunting Elk.  (Darn they didn't get one) Sorry that's me the Vegetarian talking.  Anyway, we started talking to them and it turns out the one guy lived in Torrance and just moved to Arizona, small world.

During our time in Cody we also did the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.  A must see for anyone in the area.  It will take you 2 days to really go through it and see everything.  There is an Indian heritage wing, Yellowstone wing and one wing with over 3500 guns.   It was amazing.

Here's the link:  http://www.bbhc.org/

After a second day in Yellowstone we were truly exhausted but saw the beautiful Geysers and bubbling sulfur pools.  It truly made me understand how alive our Earth is.

We packed up and moved to a campground in the southern part of the Grand Tetons, named Gros Ventre  (pronounced Gro Von)  It is absolutely beautiful.  The leaves are changing to the colors of Fall. The following pictures are from the area around our campsite and 50 yards from us is a river.  As you can see there are few campers here and when people are here the sites are far apart, so lots of space.  Downside is it's primitive camping, which means we are self contained and have to go dump our tanks about every 3 days and fill up the water tank.  In addition we are running on a generator which uses diesel fuel from our tank.  We might have to go into town to get more fuel.  It is so worth the little bit of inconvenience to stay here.

The park is full of photographers who go out like us and do photography in the morning and evening.   When we drive down the road when you see a group of cars along the road it's usually an animal in the area and there are dozens of camera clicking away.  This is where professional photographers and amateur picture takers all band together to get that perfect shot.

Now we are running around getting moose, bear and elk shots to post.  This adventure is truly a gift.  One I know we will treasure forever.  We hope you are enjoying some of these blog posts and pictures.  I am trying to get things put on as I can.  Right now our connection is a little sketchy but we're dealing with it.  

More to come...

Yellowstone and Gran Teton animal and Geyser shots

Click on the link below for a slide show of some of the current pictures Tom and I have taken.  This first photos are from Yellowstone and the photos of the moose are in our campground in the Grand Tetons. More photos to come !!!!

https://picasaweb.google.com/100518153875957627148/Yellowstone?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzC892atMmyyQE#slideshow/5656031266964118290

Driving through Montana toward Yellowstone

Sunday - Monday Sept 18 and 19


Spent the day driving from Missoula, Montana to what we hoped would be Cody, Wyoming.  Along the way we encountered a Prison Museum in Deere Lodge Montana.
    Facts:  the Old Montana Prison was built by inmate labor, this turn-of-the-century fortress was home to at least one member of Butch Cassidy's "Wild Bunch".  

It was really creepy walking through the hallways and into the cells, but it was interesting all at the same time.  The conditions were less than I could imagine living in.  We went down to "The Hole" where they put prisoners in solitary confinement and that was little much for me being claustrophobic.  


After we left Deere Lodge we traveled to Bozeman, Montana.  Just outside of the town there, we almost missed it, was the Grizzly Encounter, as seen on NATGEO TV.  We stopped there and saw Brutus the bear and Sheena.  What magnificent creatures bears are.  Just to be in there watching them was amazing.  

The wind was whipping around us and Tom was getting tired so we stopped and fueled up.  We spent our first night as Wal-Martians in a Wal-Mart parking lot along side a couple other rigs.  It wasn't so bad until the guy who cleans the parking lot did a couple of laps around the motorhome with his sweeper at 3:30 in the morning.  We ended up getting up around 4:30 am and heading to Cody.  

Currently in Missoula

We are currently in Missoula Montana for a little rest and business.  Travel day tomorrow to Yellowstone National Park.  One of the first stops we plan to make on this adventure.  Check back for updates.  I will try to post daily or every other day on the blog to not get behind.   Thanks for traveling along with us.

Our Big Fork Adventure Continued.....

The following  day we headed out early to Glacier National Park for our day in the Park and our drive to on the Going to the Sun road.  This drive was beautiful with lots of great picture opportunities. 

The waterfalls looked and sounded fabulous, as we hiked a little closer to them one could feel the chill come from the water.   It was truly a breath of fresh air because it was really warm up there in the park that day, close to 86 degrees.   The glaciers were truly melting.  We filled our water bottles with glacier water and drank it as fast as we could, ice cold and refreshing.   There were some guys diving in the ice cold water and swimming around a bit.  They couldn’t stay in long that’s for sure.    

Our Big Fork Adventure

We arrived in Big Fork on The Flathead River, to a beautiful place, I will call paradise.  A new friend to us on this adventure has a house on the lake which has a motorhome pad.   This is most defiantly paradise in Montana.   We were greeted by the locals, Bambi and her mom.  

We had dinner on the porch with a burning orange and red sunset.  An eagle graced us with his presence and then  glided away.  

Some turkeys came to greet us too.  They were very cute.  All we did was shoot them with the camera.  No turkey dinners here !!!

The New Beginning

The summer came to an end Idaho for us a little bittersweet if you ask me.  We packed the truck with a lot less stuff then we had when we left Redondo Beach, that's for sure.  After many ebay sales, craigslist listings, and yard sales we downsized even more.  Now our stuff is in a safe place waiting for our return after our adventure.   We now begin living the dream of traveling this country, meeting people, seeing what there is to see, learning about our history and ourselves.

The final month went faster than expected.  I (Lorraine) had the single best summer I ever could have had with a terrific brother who I got to spend time with like I never have before.  It's a summer I will cherish forever.  It made the beginning of this trip the best way to start.  We had great BBQ's on the weekends, spent mother's day, father's day and the 4th of July together.  It was quite a summer.  Thanks to them for the hospitality.  I could not be happier right now. 

 My brother and his wife (above)

Here we are on the last weekend saying bye.  Verlin (in the riding gear), Jan, Tom !!  Chloe is the Brown dog  and Hunter is the blonde dog.   

More updates this weekend about our boat trips on the lake, our trip to Glacier National Park and our Zip Line Tour...coming soon!!!!

HIAWATHA BIKE TRAIL AUG 1, 2011

This is the beginning of the Hiawatha Trail...It's a rails to trails kind of path.  Used to be an old railroad track winding 15 miles through the mountains.  The original trains ran from Chicago to Seattle.  The 15 miles is all downhill on a slight grade.   We passed through 4 tunnels, the first being the longest and most scary for me.  I (Lorraine) am a bit claustrophobic so it made for a little panic in the beginning.  We needed to have good lights on our bikes since the first tunnel is 1 3/4 miles long.  It stays a chilly 45 degrees all year round in there.  The temps outside that day were over 80.   So we packed up and moved on to the bikes with cameras in hand.  

Here is the end of the first tunnel.  My hands were ice cubes and my teeth were chattering.  Our lights were barely enough to see though blackness of this tunnel.  It was a crazy ride.  I kept wanting to open my eyes wider but that didn't help and I probably looked like an owl.  

Upon venturing out of the tunnel we were greeted with this beautiful waterfall that sounded as wonderful as it looked.  I think I could have sat there all day and just enjoyed it.   It would have been nice to dive in had I not been a Popsicle from the first part of the ride. 

Tom plopped himself down and starting snapping away to his perfect shot.

This was the end of the tunnel opening.  See it's a wee bit dark in there.   The smell actually reminded me of Pirates of the Carribean at Disneyland.

The was the next tunnel.  Not so bad since we could see the other end.

One of the first crossing over a tressel.

It's very high.  YIKES!!

Looking back at the tressel we crossed.

Here we go again......across another tressel and then

another tunnel....

This next tunnel they kept us out of and we rode around it.

We were told not to feed the animals, should we encounter any.  I don't think the other people before us or this little guy got that memo because he was very friendly and seemed to know what we were there for.  I figured he knows how to pose for the camera and then get a cracker...

The rest of the trail was pretty much like this....Which was just a joy to ride.   When we got to the bottom we had the option of riding back up or taking the shuttle bus.  We opted for the shuttle bus since we purchased tickets and Tom's knee couldn't do much more.  The bus took us back up the hill to the long tunnel we did in the beginning and we had to done the jackets and ride back through the black hole of darkness to the other side.  

I must say it was a splendid day...

And the funniest part of the day was coming out of the final tunnel with a stripe of mud up both our butts from out back tires spewing the muddy water up.  Our backpacks and backside had this stripe, as did everyone coming out of there.  Too funny.

Update

,I really didn't realize how long it has been since I have updated again. Since we are not traveling and have been staying put here in Idaho there's not much to blog about.  We are just living life.  We continued to have problems with our coach and have been attempting to fix them.   Here's a review of last 2 months.

June 1 We moved to a cute little RV park called Alpine.  It was in a wooded area behind a little store and on highway 95.  The traffic sounds were not bad at all.  We heard trains sometimes but that was okay.  Our coach, we realized, had mold in it.  This was found when cleaning under the bathroom sink when a foul smell was noticed.  The mold was caused by a leak under the sink.  It grew on the cabinet shelves.  We cleaned it twice and it came back.  We also had a leak in the salon area or living room by the kitchen.  The month of June was spent trying to find the leak and contacting the dealer who was a nice enough guy and said he would get us into another coach and sell this one.  The bummer thing was that he was leaving on vacation for 3 weeks.  (Fabulous)  We had to wait until he came back.  He did email us other coaches which were available but more money than this one and smaller.   Upon his return after the 4th of July holiday we decided not to change coaches but to fix the problem with this one and keep our humble little home which we love.  We have also effected many repairs which we would not be reimbursed for.  To much moula to lose and then pay more for another coach, No thanks I take what I have.

We also had to move out of our spot at the Alpine RV park because they booked up and we didn't tell them we planned on staying all summer.  So we moved to a spot next to our storage shop where all of stuff is for us to go through, sell and repack etc.  We realized we have a place to dump, we have water and all we needed was electrical.  My brother sent over one of his guys to help us out putting in a 50 amp plug.  Now were are set up next to our garage that is bigger then our house.  It great because we don't have to pay for our space only the rent on the shop.

My food allergies have been kicking my bootie.  For those of you who don't know I am allergic to corn, citric acid, chocolate and peanuts.  My big 4 list.  I have also chosen to go gluten free, vegetarian  and no milk which is really not offering me much in the form of food.  I have to be creative.  Now I am just looking for different ways of cooking veggies, getting my protein and dealing with this.

August: Currently still going through out stuff from selling the house.  We have sold all the furniture and only have our bed and 2 bar stools left with some assorted boxes with pictures, accessories etc.  Tom has his tools left but he seems to be keeping those for now.  The truck will have more room in it now.

Tom has had another bout with skin cancer on his forehead and will be needing to take care of that soon.

Next post will be our adventure through the Hiawatha Bike Trail...

LIving Life In Idaho

So sorry I have not updated this blog lately.  We have not been traveling, just staying put right now.  We are currently still in Idaho.  Today we moved from Couer d'Alene to Hayden, only about 10 miles.  We chose to move to be closer to my brother and to be closer to our storage.

This is where we are currently.

Seems that the difficulty with the motorhome continues.  Not sure what Karma we are paying back by having these problems but I hope the debt is paid soon.  Our Hydro Hot (Hot water heater) has had some difficulty again by not heating the water.  This makes for a chilly shower and not something I personally like when it's 40 degrees outside.  Thank goodness for hot showers at the park we were staying at.  We made some repairs and it seems to be happy again and doing it's job.  Which makes us happy because hot showers are really a daily necessity.  On top of that a leaky valve in the shower and more trips to Home Depot and Lowes than I can count.  I really thought that was all finished when we sold the house.  Guess I was wrong there.


We left a cool place which was on the Spokane River.  The river had been rising since the snow melt was at about 130%.   There was a grassy area when we arrived which turned into a pond.

As the river got higher the geese found new places to explore.  I don't think they paid the nightly rate though for this space, don't they know there is limit as to how many can camp at each space.

We have been doing some exploring around town and found some good restaurants and shops.  The weather has been cold and rainy.  No tank tops or flip flops yet.  I am hoping for some of those days soon.  Maybe we can get an easy hike in one of these days.  

I'll post again soon. Please stay tuned...