Ladies Spa Day

As some of you may know, I am one of eight children. Getting a family of this size togeather on a regular basis is very difficult. The "girls" have been trying for some time to have a Spa Day where we can have "girltime".

Well they say the third time is a charm... Saturday the 24th was our third attempt. Although only 5 of us were able to go, it was fun.

This is Patty ....THE OLDEST, BY THE WAY.... soaking her feet prior to a pedicure.

Then we have Kerry (wearing the print shirt)....  THE BABY OF THE FAMILY..... and Lora.... married to my brother, Kevin.. sipping on Mimossa's. Helen.... previously married to my brother Denny... successfully avoided my camera.

We had, maicure's, pedicure's, and facials. It was so nice to be pampered especially after all the house cleaning I have been doing.

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig

Here she is.... back on her throne in the driveway. We arrived back in town about 3:30 PM on Monday April 12. The house was cold, musty and dusty but in decent shape for being abandoned for almost 7 months. It took me about 5 days to clean and scrub everything. We had no broken water pipes but it took several days before the water ran clear and I could do laundry. My flower beds are a mess and willl need lots of tender loving care. In February there was some high water that took 6 to 7 feet of our creek bank downstream. There are 3 large trees that now have significant amounts of their root structure exposed, so we may loose them. We'll just have to wait and see. The trees are just starting to show their leaves... and the Lilac is budding it's flowers.

The dogs started getting excited when we were within 3 to 4 miles of the house. They knew where we were. They ran around smelling everything.... looking for what's different. I was amazed..... Sydney wasn't in the house for 10 minutes when he went to the front door and rang the bell to tell me he wanted to go out. I have a wind chime hanging next to the front door with an extended string down to Sydney's nose level. When he was a puppy, I taught him to nose the string to ring the chimes when he needed to go out. Although Sydney barks, he only does it when he's in guard mode. He would stand for long periods of time by the door before I noticed him, so I devised the chime thing to save him from discomfort.

Saturday the 17th was the opening day of Trout Fishing here in our county. The local fishing club (Camp Susque Lip Rippers) camped out down by the creek. We visited their campsite and listened to stories of the one that got away as well as the "water's too cold" excuses. They are a nice bunch of fella's and fun to spend time with.

Gettin our kicks on Route 66

Our trip back to Pa was planned to take us down the infamous Route 66..... portions of it anyway. What a hoot! It was like going back in time to the 50's & 60's. We saw a motel whose rooms were all separate teepees, made of cement and painted to look like canvas. Parked outside each one was a vintage car from this era. We passed by the Cadillac Ranch in Texas where a row of cadillac cars are partially buried, nose down, and painted grafetti style. We saw numerous 50 & 60 style dinners, gas stations, and billboards.

Attached are two pictures I took at a state rest area. Who says Arkansas doesn't have a sense of humor?
We averaged a little over 200 miles of traveling per day. John was on a mission to get home. We stopped in Kentucky near Mammouth Caves for a few days to refill the water tank and dump our waste water. Because we monitor the weather closely when we travel, we were aware of a bad storm with high winds coming towards us so we hunkered down once again for 2 days.
Our path home changed slightly when we received an e-mail from John's nephew, Dave Pietch (John's sister's son), inviting us to stop by Indianapolis on our way home.  Since we were in Kentucky we took the slight detour and spent a very enjoyable weekend with Dave, Debbie, Zack and Kaitlyn. What a lovely family. We toured the Food Bank that they run for their church and had a chauffered tour of the Indy area. Then it was back on the road.... I swear John can smell the house...

On the Road Again ....Petrified Forest / Painted Desert

March 30th, we hit the road again. John thinks it is time to start heading back east. I think it's too early.... spring rain and storms....  but since he's the driver, off we go. The day did not start off very well. We went to a gas station to fill the tank and had to wait for 45 minutes until the computer came back on line to take our debit card. After an hour driving the wind started to pick up and we were subjected to 20 - 35 mile an hour wind gusts. In addition some parts of the road were extremely rutted and we jiggled quite a bit. As a matter of fact the latch that holds the outside awning jiggled loose and one of those gusts of wind decided to open up our awning as we were driving down the road. Luckily, we were able to pull over, get the awning back in, latch it and then "Magiver" fix it (masking tape around the poles) so that it wouldn't jiggle loose again. We saw another fifth wheel RV who had a flat tire, and didn't realize it until the tire caught on fire. 

Our destination was north and east of Cottonwood along route 40. It is the Painted Desert National Park and Petrified Forest. We arrived mid-day and spent the night in the parking lot of the gift center at the entrance to the park. There is no camping in the park but the shops allow RVs to stay free of charge over night. Early the next morning we entered the park. The drive through the park is about 28 miles long but it takes about 2-3 hours with the many pull-offs and vistas. These pictures just don't do it justice.

I was able to collect some petrified wood samples at the gift shop. Picking up anything in the park is forbidden and strickly enforced.

After leaving the park we continued along route 40 to New Mexico... Tijeras to be exact... just east of Albuquerque. We couldn't fight the wind any longer and decided to stay at a campground here. We were going to leave today, but decided to stay put another day or two because we are now watching snow flurries out the front window.

Walking the dog....Sydney the goat

Each and every day, Sydney and I go for a nice long walk / hike to get our exercise. Although we went many directions and saw many interesting things our favorite is a walk down the dry run that intersected the middle of the Thousand Trails park. It is like a dry creek bed with a sandy bottom and stones here and there along the way. The sides are mountainous with interesting formations and caves.

Sydney quickly adapted from forest terrain to mountain climbing and cave exploration. He has also taken up rabbitt chasing. The rabbitts out here come in many sizes, but they all have two things in common.... they're fast and smart. There were a few days that I just sat and waited for him to return with his tongue hanging so low I thought he was going to trip over it.

More Sights in Arizona

We have been to sooooo many places and seen so much it is impossible to share it all, but I thought I would choose a few of my pictures to show you. My alterior motive is you will have to sit through a complete slide show when we return.

Chaple in Sedona. The first is a picture of the interior of a chapel that sits up on the side of a mountain outside Sedona. It is very majestic and blends right in with the surroundings. It reminded me of the work of Frank Lyold Wright....who incedently did the first design. But since it took many years and the site was changed, the original design was slightly altered by a local architect.

Hot Air Balloons. Almost every morning when we were parked on BLM land, this balloon would peek its head over the ridge, disappear and return to fly up and away. John kept finding little plactic toy soldiers attached to plastic parachutes in the desert when he walked Holly. We made the assumption, right or wrong, that they were dropped from the balloon to either test the wind current or amuse children along on the ride.

Fossill Creek Canyon. We rode with our friends Millie and Ray through the mountains of Fossill Creek and were treated to some beautiful scenery. This area use to be the home of a hydo-electric plant. At some point in time, the water level got so low that the water was heated so high that it was killing the fish and other wildlife. The plant was closed and removed. A considerable effort was made to restore the area and the natural critters who inhabited the region. The road descending down into the canyon was narrow and breathtakingly beautiful. We found the local swimming hole complete with a rope swing.

 

Something new

Wendy and John...... you are not going to believe this. We have been geocaching. We are up to 6 finds so far.... considering there are over a million out there, we have a long way to go.

For those of you who thing I am speaking a foreign language, geocaching is like treasure hunting. You go to a website.... geocaching.com.... look up the caches (treasures hidden) in the area you are in and you obtain the GPS coodinates of the cache and you go look for it. Sometimes the Name of the cache gives you clues to finding it. When and if you find it, you sign a log that is in the cache. Depending on the type of cache it is, you may take a trinket from the cache and replace it with one of yours or you may even find a bug (a numbered item that is tracked), that needs transported somewhere else.

We have found some very simple ones to start but are working our way up to the harder ones. Here are some pictures that I took of Millie finding a "micro" cache. This one was cleaverly hidden in a stick and held there with a magnet. The name of this one was Woodpecker's Move. Millie said the stick she decided to pick up was a different color than the others lying around the bush.... that's what you look for... something that looks like it doesn't belong.

We are having fun with it.

We found one that was called Tar's Reward. Tar was the dog who garded the property. When we arrived at the site there was a mailbox on the fence with TAR on the outside. We thought it was the cache. When we opened it, it was full of dog biscuits for the dog. So we gave him one and he then went to the end of the fence. We followed and there was the cache under some rocks. So you reward the dog and the dog rewards you. Very cleaver and fun for everyone.