On Wednesday 23rd of August – Coeur D’ Alene Idaho

Today had some highs and lows to it. The highs, far outweighed the lows just so you know. J The day started out with an attempt to replace the auto retracting stairs on the motorhome. The original set had a swing arm break. We tried having it welded 3 years ago, and it held up for a while, but it finally gave up the ghost as we tried to leave Rancho Cordova on this trip. We ordered a replacement step from Amazon.com. It was delivered here to the RV Park. The box was a little beat up, but the step looked like it was no worse for wear. However, after about an hour of removing the old step, I was ready to install the new step. The first step is to extend the step before installing it. I couldn’t get the steps to extend and found out that a plastic bracket that attaches two parts of the drive motor and the gear box was cracked. So, we have ordered a replacement set of steps and are returning the first set we received. According to Amazon, the new set should arrive Friday to the RV park in Hungry Horse which is our destination on Thursday. Until then, we will take a tall step out to the little yellow step and hope one of us does not break our neck! :-)

The highlight of our visit to Coeur D’ Alene is the dinner cruise that we took along lake Coeur D’ Alene on a ferry boat. It was cloudy, but balmy, but not hot, the captain was amazing at the way he handled the ship and the food was amazingly good. The experience started with us exploring the area around the dock. There are a lot of very expensive boats around here. Obviously this area has a pretty high tax bracket. Our Boating excursion started out with an on time departure, but an immediate return to the dock, when it was found out that someone who was coming on board to celebrate her birthday had missed the boat by 2 minutes. So, captain skillfully returned to the dock, we picked up our two missing passengers and then we were on our way. It was a beautiful evening. We sat on the upper deck the entire evening. Though we sprinkles a couple times, the tour was very enjoyable. The captain did a good job of pointing out to us some of the interesting aspects of the lake. It was a wonderful evening, and the roast beef dinner was amazing. It was well worth the $50.00 per person that we paid for the experience.  

 

Safe travels all!

On Tuesday the 22nd of August a long drive to Coeur D’ Alene Idaho

On this day we had a full day of driving from Bend Oregon to Coure D’ Alaine. It was over 400 miles of driving on this day. We made really good progress all-in-all, but we did have some traffic at the when we approached the Bridge that crosses the ‘Columbia River’ going from Oregon to Washington State. We also ran into some traffic when we passed through Spokane around rush hour. As we drove through Spokane, we were amazed at the beauty of some of the older architecture such as that of Smoke stacks, a church and the Washington State University.

During our drive, we had a lunch at a great little dinner in Biggs Oregon where the 97 north intersected with the interstate 92 which would start us on our eastward trek along the Columbia river. We arrived in Coure D’Alaine around 6:00 PM at the Blackwell Island RV resort.

This is a beautiful RV resort. The sites are gravel sites with many of the smaller roads being gravel as well. They have a nice little dog area. There is a dog beach where you can take your dogs to run and play. This is a beautiful and well maintained RV park with lots of wonderful amenities, including some natural ones like an Osprey nest! Sadly however, they do not allow any breeds that they perceive as aggressive breeds such as ‘Pit Bulls’, Rottweiler's, German Shepherds and Doberman pinchers.

Activities on the day of the great eclipse

Activities on the day of the great eclipse

Today, quite the eventful day. The day started out with a relaxing viewing of the great American Eclipse of 2017 from the city of Bend Oregon. We set up a small observation post at Karen and Mikes RV spot here at the Scandia RV Park. We had purchased a 10 pack of glasses to look at eclipses with from Amazon.com. We also set up a stand with Binoculars pointed to a piece of paper to observe the eclipse without protective glasses just in case.

After the eclipse was over, we made a trip to the High Desert Museum. This was an amazing experience. The museum has exhibits about Indians, Ranching, Lumber milling, wild life such as porcupines, living on the plains back in the 1800's, how the plains were important to the world war II effort and birds of Prey. So far, this has been the highlight of the trip. There was a possibility we would have missed this experience, but we are so glad we didn’t pass on it.

After the Museum visit, we came back to the rig for a little rest before we had Karen, Mike and Eliza over for a BBQ hamburger dinner.

Tomorrow, we head off early for a long pull to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Safe travels all!

Eric and Carol Anderson

Greetings from Bend Oregon

We are currently in Bend Oregon. It is here where we are hooking up with Eric's sister Karen, brother-in-law Mike, and Eliza, their grand daughter. We are staying at the Scandia RV park. We will be observing the eclipse from here. Though our original plan was to be a little farther north, in the are of 'Totality' to see the 'Full Eclipse' we couldn't be there because our RV Park reservations were lost. Not to worry, we are still having a great time right where we are! On our first full day here in Bend, the girls went and did some retail therapy at some of the local stores, while the guys worked on some chores around the motorhome.

After having lunch at a local Applebee's, we checked out the Big Obsidian Flow - Newberry Volcanic Monument about 30 miles south of Bend, it was a great place to see a huge deposit of obsidian rock formations.

After our afternoon of checking out the Obsidian flow, we had dinner at a local brew-pub with some family of Mike's and their friends who had also made the trip to this area to see the eclipse.

After dinner we took Charlie, Rosie and Rex, for a late night run at the local dog park. It was a little dark, but no other dogs out there to cause any grief! :-)

Safe travels everyone!

Eric and Carol!

We are on the road again!

After a hiatus of many months, we are finally on the road again, and this is a big trip. This trip is to Glacier but with many stops along the way. But, this trip is being made under bitter sweet circumstances. Sadly, on Wednesday, the 16th of September, Carol's Nephew Brandon Waite passed away after battling Muscular Dystrophy. He was 32. Though he far out lived the normal life span of someone with MD, it was none the less extremely painful for the entire family.

Our first stop on our trip was just to over-night in Weed California. We stayed at Trailer Lane RV Park.

It is a safe location. Access roads are a little beat up from the annual snow fall, but definitely passable. The RV park is compact sand for roads and sites, but fairly clean. Not a resort by any means, but the sites are level, and as long as you only have slides on one side, you are good to go. The Wi-Fi is weak at best, but the water and power are solid. The bathrooms and laundry room are well maintained. The staff is very friendly. They did not seem concerned about our dogs (Pit bulls). They lost our reservation, but their reservation process is a desk calendar, so we were not surprised. So, always call back to confirm before you head here. They are very accommodating and they do have an overflow spot in case they get a little over booked!

Our next stop is Bend Oregon to hook up with Karen and Mike and Eliza to see the solar eclipse.

Safe travels all!

A new CAR!

Well, it has been another busy month for us as full timers. We had been thinking that our focus after our trip to Glacier which is coming up later this month of August, would be to pay off some credit card bills and then buy a new car. Well, just like so many other Americans, we occasionally need a little retail therapy.

Also, its that time of year when dealers are clearing out their year-end inventory. So, we went looking at cars. We looked at the Jeep Wrangler, the Jeep Cherokee and the Ford Edge. All three of them are towable four down behind the motorhome. We wanted to buy a car in the next year or so in order to have it paid off before we retire. After looking at all three cars, we decided we really liked the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, a four door Jeep. We had heard that this was the last year of this body style of the venerable Jeep Wrangler, and that early previews of the new body style were not well liked. So, with all of this in mind, and the fact that we could get $3,777 off of a Wrangler if we bought before the end of July, we decided to pull the trigger. We talked to the local Folsom Jeep dealer, and though they talked a good line about being willing to negotiate, when it came down to the brass tax, they indicated that the ‘price was what the price was’. We found a Wrangler in the basic package and color that we liked at Elk Grove Jeep. We touched base with them via instant messenger, and found out that the jeep we wanted was still in stock. So, we headed down to Elk Grove so that we would be down there when they opened, After talking to a Sales guy, we found out that the Jeep we wanted, had been stolen from the dealers lot a few days before, and that they had not updated the inventory. But, they had a couple options of other models that they could trade for at other dealerships. They showed us copies of the Window sticker and we picked one that turned out to be in Stockton. They immediately dispatched a ‘Runner’ to take another vehicle down to Stockton and pick up the car we were interested in and bring it back. While the process of getting the Jeep we liked was in process, we proceeded with getting the paperwork and financing done. Once the paperwork was done, we went and grabbed lunch at Panda Express and then headed back to the dealership. Within 15 minutes of returning to the dealership, our Jeep had arrived. We took it for a quick test drive, and we loved it! So, we told the staff it was a ‘Done Deal’ and we headed home. We love the Jeep because its color is very close to one of the colors on the Motorhome! J

The newest addition to our family Rex, is doing great. He is now 21 weeks old, and weighs in at 35 pounds. He is getting along great with Rosie and Charlie. Charlie however is having a bit of a challenge with Rex because he is a little cautious about wanting to put Rex in his place. Rosie however has no problem letting Rex know when ‘enough is enough’. So, we are continuing to work on that and encouraging Charlie to tell Rex ‘No’ when he has had enough.

In less than two weeks, we head out on our two week vacation to Glacier, which will include a brief stop in Bend where we will hook up with Karen and Mike so that we can watch the eclipse.

Safe travels everyone, we will keep you posted on how things are going!

Lots of stuff going on as we move from one month to the next

The month of June had been a very busy one. One of the great things about the sight that we have our RV at is that we have a lot of tree coverage. About a year ago, the RV park replaced part of the concrete at our sight. This year, the tree, had one of its three main branches start to die. The initial thought that it was because of damage to the roots because of the concrete work, was causing the tree to die. So, the land lord decided that the tree needed to go before it fell over on our motorhome or our neighbors home. So, we said good buy to one of the trees that we really love.

 When we pulled the motorhome out, we fired up the generator to run the Air conditioners. It died after only running a few minutes. We are thinking that the fuel filter is clogged, so we are taking the motorhome in on the 10th of July to have it looked at. We need to get the generator able to run for our trip to Glacier later this summer.

Our new boy Rex continues to grow up. As of this week, he is 16 weeks old and is smart as a whip. Though he still pushes the edge of the envelope as he grows up, and learns about new things he can do, we have to work with him to establish his limits of what is acceptable. This week, he weighed in at a robust 26 pounds! He has gained 17 pounds in the seven weeks that we have had him in our pack. Rex is getting along really well with Rosie and Charlie. Rosie and rex are getting along better than either of us thought he would. So, all in all, Rex is fitting in well.

The fourth of July was a rough one on Rosie, despite using music and a thunder shirt, she was really having a rough time. We tried giving her some Trazadone from the Veterinarian, she was still really worked up. From a scale of 1 to 10, Rosie being and absolute wreck, she was an 8 with the thunder shirt and music, and a 7 with the trazadone added on board.

One of the things that Eric is doing these days while working for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is doing support for Salesforce development. Eric attended the Salesforce developers conference in San Francisco. There was a lot of good information to be had and about 5,000 attendees. There is a Salesforce Users conference held in November also in San Francisco. That event has over 150,000 attendees. That is just too many people for Eric to feel comfortable with. The best part about going to the Salesforce Developers conference was for him to be able to hook up with his nephew Marq who is corporate lawyer that works in San Francisco.

Have safe travels everyone!