It just keeps getting better.

Sorry for the lack of updates, retired life is just sooooo busy, I'll try to recount our latest adventures/activities.

We enjoyed spending time with Amy before she flew back to Taiwan. We went out to eat at Pancho's and had way to much to eat, after much deliberation we decided not to go with her to Taiwan, not sure what we would do with our dog, maybe next time. We had a lot of fun and was sad to see her go. Jen was excited to find out that some of Amy's family follows our blog. So to those of you - HI! Jen is glad to know that someone is reading.

On Saturday John, a friend of Marilyn's, took us sailing on his 40 foot Hunter. Sylvia, Doug, Marilyn, Jen, Sissy and I enjoyed a wonderful time on the boat. Thanks John for a great day. Nothing better than some good reggae, good company, and a sail boat!!! Then when we got back to Marina Del Rey Doug made us all an excellent dinner. I got his recipe for pototoes. Thanks Doug, it was great.

Marilyn & Jen

Doug & Sissy - Chillin

While we were in LA, we decided to purchase a couple of sailboards. No big deal - found a couple on Craigslist about 70 miles away and they were real cheap!! So we decided to go get them. The seller met us at the front of a gated RV park. I knew something was up when his mullet was purple and he looked to be about 65. So we are driving through the RV park and I see a woman who is wearing a beige shirt...No Wait!! She was completely NAKED except for a belly bracelet. Then we pass a guy in a golf cart wearing only a smile. We arrive at the sellers house and then he says to us "In case you haven't noticed. This is a nudiest colony." (UMM yeah I think we noticed. Thanks buddy.) I told him we had, and I jokingly told him about our trip and that I wanted to go get our camper and stay there awhile. This immediatly excited the guy and he started undressing Jen with his eyes. Needless to say we quickly paid for the boards and left. As we were leaving we drove by the tennis courts, where four guys were playing tennis with nothing on but their tennis shoes. You don't see that everyday. (Wish we hadn't seen it that day.) Then at the gate was a sign posted reminding us that there was no nudity beyond that point.

And another sign that we just had to take a picture of.....

:)

Us in front of the HollyWood Sign although its a little hazy

We got to go to our very first symphony, which Jen really enjoyed and for me it was okay. I will

say I was glad that I didn't have to dress up. There was an old man playing the saxophone which was pretty impressive for his age. His shoes were about 4 sizes too big and he had to scoot his feet when he walked. kinda funny.

Wild fires still burning in the background of Marina Del Rey

We also went to the Sawdust Art Festival, which is an huge art show at Laguna Beach (Thanks Aunt Tess for the Tickets.) Jen really enjoyed it, as for me - I was in heaven. I had beer, live music, and was the only guy in the place!!!

We went back to Aunt Tess's house and had lunch again; Uncle Charlie and Aimee came too. We went through the photo albums and heard some old stories about when Jen was little. Thanks again Aunt Tess for a nice time.

One of the blurred days in LA we went to the play Wild Boy. Very interesting play, minimal stage props. Very talented actors.

On another day we rode bikes to the Santa Monica boardwalk for the free concert. We didn't stay late but we enjoyed the bike ride and the sunset.

Sunset at Santa Monica Pier

On Friday August 28th we decided to go to a Howl at the Moon in City Walk. So we take the subway at LAX and go to Union Station to have dinner, then off to City Walk. We get there and the performers are excellent, but a little different from the other piano bars we have been to. We stay till about midnight then start winding our way back home, get back on the subway. We get to our first stop where we have to change trains. Opps in LA they close the subways. So my mom starts talking to these two kids with Green hair to see if they can help us. I think they were just as lost as we were, but one of them was trying to help us. Unfortunatley we were stranded at downtown LA. Not much help. So we walk up to the street to the bus schedule to see what we needed to do to get home. That is when my mom met Reggie, who had been with Jonny Walker since he got off work at five and was trying to get home to Long Beach, but had missed his bus. (Did I mention that it was now 12:46PM?) So Reggie goes on to tell us which bus we need to take. So here we are downtown LA on a Friday night listening to a drunk black man, surrounded by homeless people, in the middle of the night. Life is Great. So after about 45 minutes or so Reggie decides we are at the wrong bus station and that we need to walk down a couple of blocks to another bus station. There they are shooting a movie across the street (pretty cool) but nobody else is at this bus stop and as far as Jen and I can tell no buses. So now it is about 2 am we see all the bars close and the drunks going home. Still no bus. Finally one shows up and we get on it. But the bus driver decides that Reggie is wrong and we need a different bus so she drops us off at another station and tells us our bus will be there in about 45 minutes. Finally we have had enough and hailed a cab, 50 dollars later and some broken spanish we make it back home. The evening was an adventure to say the least.

Howl at the Moon

We went to another concert at Chase Park but it wasn't that good. The lady ruined all the old Doris Day songs.

We have gone to Venice Beach several times and even ran into the future us.

Can you see the resemblance? Spooky!

We have enjoyed our stay here at LA but we are beginning to get home sick and are ready to go back to the boat.

A night out with Amy and her friends

We had so much fun today.

Today we went to Thousand Oaks (it's not LA) and saw Aunt Tess and Aimee. We had soo much fun and she fed us so much food at lunch that we are still stuffed and didn't have a dinner. It was a feast and it was great. *Thanks!* Marilyn and Amy are still bragging about how nice my aunt is and what a good time they had. Sissy enjoyed the visit too and got a cool new toy and her own box of cookies (They smell so good they make me want to eat one!) M&M was sad to have missed the green M&M's and water that was waiting for him, but appreciated the thought. The house was exactly what I expected to find...a cute house with lots of character and love. I really enjoyed seeing the newest hobby of tile work as well; and can't wait to see pictures of the finished products. However I am ashamed to say that I didn't take any pictures, I didn't even think about any pictures until Amy pulled the camera out at the Hollywood sign. - I guess that I will just have to go back. :)
After our visit we went to Griffith Park Planetarium and watched the Center of Universe presentation, played with the interactive displays, and watched the sunset on the Hollywood sign.
Today was a great day!

Finally made it to LA!

We arrived early and surprised Marilyn on Saturday afternoon.
I think that she was happier to see the bed and Sissy than us. :) Just kiddin'

We went with Marilyn to a John Davidson concert on Saturday evening. It was a lot of fun! Ryan got drug up on stage and was a riot! Of course I didn't have a camera with me, but Marilyn's friend Helen got some pictures on her phone and said that she would send them.

Tomorrow we are going to see Aunt Tess, the Hollywood sign, and the Griffin Planetarium.
We would also like to try sailboarding while we are here.

Well I just wanted to let you know where we were.
We are headed out to dinner now.
More updates later.

We are...where are we?!

We are camped off Hwy 1 in the middle of nowhere.
And we have been busy.

On Thursday we saw San Francisco and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, saw a real life California wildfire news crews included, and the Monterey Marine Sanctuary,.

Today we saw the town of Monterey fishing wharf and cannery, Big Sur, The Hurst Castle, Cambria, Elephant Seals, and the workers harvesting the strawberry fields. We are approximately 72 miles from Santa Barbara and may make it to Aunt Tess's House by Saturday. If we don't get too distracted between here and there.

Well that about catches you up!
Here are pictures of the Redwoods that I said I would post and a few from the last two days.
Enjoy!
Jen


Sissy and M&M are ready to start the day!




Our beach house


Cheese!



Our lodge at the woods.


This van got stuck in the 2400 yr tree


Ryan and M&M posing for a picture.


The tree is as wide as the truck.



Some of the pretty rocks off the coast.





The windy roads that we have been traveling.





The Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco homes.




The wild fire just north of Santa Cruz, the helicopters were hauling water out of the ocean.


The sun through the smoke.


Outdoor pool at Hurst Castle


One of the balcony areas

The main guest house

The indoor pool

We are Here...

Just a quick post.

We are stopped in Fort Bragg on the Northern coast of California to use their Internet.

We are still on the move south but since the Internet and cell reception have become a rare commodity and the phone explodes with messages every time it gets a hint of a signal. We thought that we would stop and update those of you that are worried because we haven't posted since Washington.

Washington had a really pretty drive along the Columbia River.

And an art gallery with a lot of artifacts from Louis and Clark's expedition, Queen Mary's reign, as well as a room full of Chess sets. (Ryan liked that part)

Oregon was nice we stayed a night in a fishing village just south of the border and saw sea lions on the fishing docks. They were really fun to watch.

Another night in a little camp ground.

And a night at one of the beach pull offs. Where we played in the sand and water all day. Then had a romantic dinner on the beach and watched the sunset.

We stayed the night at an RV park called Whaleshead, and while checking in "The Tunnel" was the recomended route to walk to the beach. They said it wasn't too bad... it was really long, black, and there was water standing in the tunnel - Scary! Ryan and Sissy had fun rock climbing once at the beach. And we saw some sea otters. We hiked back via the "highway route" to our campsite.

Hwy 101 was not as coastal as we thought but it was a nice trip.

California has a customs port at the border of Oregon, they confiscated my Idaho Cherries!

Then wanted to sell me more cherries at the grocery store for 3X what I paid for the ones that they took. I am on a cherry strike until I get to another state!

We took "road" 211, I say "road" because it was more of a one laned path. It was not meant to haul a trailer down or up for that matter. The only redeeming part of that road is the spectacular beach when you get in the valley, which is where we ended up spending the night, and the amazing view of the stars that night! It was incredible, we stayed up and watched the meteor shower and listened to the waves crashing on the beach. We also watched the whales and a sea lion came right up on the beach in front of the camper. It was a really neat spot.

And today we explored the Humbolt Redwood Forests. The trees are huge, we felt so small driving through them. I will post pictures when I download them from the camera.

Well better get back on the road. Just wanted you to know where we were.

Love,

Jen, Ryan and the brats

Today we saw....nothing.

Well today was going to be the day for seeing Mt. Saint Helens.

Guess not.

We did make the drive and we dutifully went to all of the overlooks,

but this is all we saw.

It was beautiful! Just not what we expected.

The trip was not completely in vain though, there were also a few "learning centers" stationed on the route and we stopped in one and learned all about the volcano and it's eruption on May 18, 1980 at 8:32am on a Sunday. We also learned how managed forests are better trees than unmanaged forests. It was interesting.
And we learned that Ryan still knows how to fly and look cool!

Now we are off to see the Pacific Ocean and Hwy 1.

Jen, Ryan and the kids

Captain's Log

Captains Log

(The Rest of the Story)

08/05/2009

Well we are now in Oregon, camping at the rest area at mile marker 336 on interstate 84. With Mountains all around us, we can't even see the moon. The total traveled miles, as of today, talley up to 1822. The old truck is doing great, considering we are pushing 260,000 miles. The new radiator has solved all of our overheating problems. Every time I think we are done with the mountains another steep grade pops up. We climbed Mt Lena in Utah (9755 ft) which was far worse than Independance pass in CO. (8 to 10 percent grade climbing and decending.) But a wonderful view of Flaming Gorge Res. awaited us on the back side of the mountain.

Apparently my truck develpoded an exaust leak on the last mountain we climbed because when we got to the top Sissy and my back window were completly covered with black exaust smoke (poor puppy) We have given her two baths and she still has a smoky grey looking coat. We let her ride in the cab today.

We bought a 100 gallons of fuel in Salida CO, which at the time had gotten us 900 miles. I'm sure that now after crossing mountain after mountain the fuel economy is way worse, I'm afraid to fill up and check again.

Tomorrow we are hoping to make it to Mt St Helens, then on Friday hopefully we will start our journy South on Highway 101. We are planning on picking it up at Astoria OR about as far north west in Oregon as you can get for those who don't own a map or are too lazy to look.

We'll keep you posted.

Ryan, Jen, Sissy and M&M

Trip Update

I tried to send this as an email but it wouldn't let me send.

Hey all,

We are currently camped just North of Salt Lake City in Willard, Utah. We just got back from a swim in the Great Salt Lake. Which by the way is NOT salty water.

Ryan is cooking dinner and since I haven't been keeping everyone informed (it is not entirely my fault) I thought I would take a minute to update you.

~*~

We started off our trip July 16th from OKC to Woodward. Yes I know that isn't very far but we took roads that we hadn't taken before, just to shake things up a bit. Just before getting to Enid we had a blow out on the camper, not a big deal we will just put the spare on. Oops - It's flat. So we had to unhook the camper and leave it on the side of the road while we drove the truck the 10 miles on into town. Over $100 dollars later we are back on the road. We felt a little robbed but feel lucky that it was an easy fix.

Just west of Enid we saw the signs for the Historical Sod House in Aline, OK. We took the bait. It was an interesting little museum out in the middle of nowhere, we almost turned around. But just when we were sure that it was no longer there we saw a sign. The house is now inside another building. (Silly us, we saw the signs for a sod house and were looking for a sod house not a barn.) The historical society has built a small museum around the sod house and furnished it with artifacts, both in the building and in the house. It was a nice surprise.

At last we pulled into our favorite campsite, behind my parents house, just in time for dinner! We spent an entire week in Woodward. We celebrated my Papa's 77th Birthday; met my new nephew Ridge; played with Neely and Paxton; went to Fort Supply Lake and did some world class wakeboarding, and saw my other mom Annie; went to Boiling Springs State Park to see the boiling springs; went out to Alabaster Caverns State Park and took a tour of the cave; made it out to the farm to harass Alan, bug Lana about the new book (can't wait for our signed copy) and made sure that the new house and bunk house were up to par (They were!); and we went to the Woodward Elks Rodeo Dance with James and Jessica and saw Cristi. Whew!

On the 24th of July we left for Guymon and Goodwell. Yes, I know, still not very far but we wanted James and Jessica to go too and since they are not retired we had to wait for a weekend. It was worth it! Matt & Mindy brought Macie over (what a doll), Cameron got off work early and showed off his skill on the guitar, and Wayne and Richard made a batch of red pig...YUM! (Thanks guys.) We hung out at the shop like old times and then made a stop at Bob's. Quite a bit different than the one room little hole in the wall that it used to be. They have done some major remolding and fixing up. Then on Saturday Cameron made a feast for lunch while Jessica and Ryan took turns in the pool.

On the 25th we left from Cameron's place and headed to Black Mesa State Park. I have been there before but Ryan hadn't. We camped the night there and then on Sunday morning we checked out the petrified forest. M&M really enjoyed seeing evidence of his ancestors.

We then headed for Hwy 456 on Alan's recommendation. I had never been on a Hwy that just suddenly stopped being paved. It's interesting, to say the least, and probably would have been a little less scary if we hadn't been pulling the camper and if it hadn't rained cats and dogs the night before. I even had to get out of the truck and move rocks out of the road so we could pass. But Alan - You were right! The view was well worth it.

On the 27th we stayed in a little hippie town off the beaten path (Gardner, CO). We met several very interesting people, in fact everyone that we met lamented that we had just missed the 3 day Hippie Fest Celebrations - No I am not kidding. We even met a guy that asked us if we would move into town because they needed more kids. I don't know if this is something that all the locals feel or just this one, but someone should probably stop him. There is just something about an unbathed hippie with matted hair asking for your kids that puts people off about moving to town. Or maybe it is just us?!

We escaped Hippieville early on the 27th and put a full day of driving between us. Again, suckered in by a sign, promising things never before seen, we (Ryan) drove down a road that I couldn't find. According to all my maps it still doesn't exist. Beside the truck overheating, the road turning into a one lane dirt path, having NO IDEA where we were, and having to turn around and go back - It was fun. I got up close to several real life chipmunks and watched a bird the size of my thumb feed a nest full of hungry babies while M&M took a nap, Sissy chased everything that moved, and Ryan tinkered with the truck. That night we made camp just on the other side of Twin Lakes, CO. With an incredible view of the valley.

On the 28th we drove across Independence Pass per recommendation of Ashleigh. Gee thanks Ash! No it was a really pretty drive but I knew that it was a mistake when right off the bat we saw a sign that read "No vehicles over 35 feet". Well any of you that know Ryan, know that this sign was a dare - not a warning. It was Scary! The truck overheated halfway up and then again at the top. Having dumped all the water that we brought with us into the radiator halfway up we had none for the top. Ryan had to get a bucket and get water out of the melted snow on the mountain. Then on the downhill side the road is twisty, curvy, steep, and at some points one-laned. I am not kidding when I say that we were worried about crashing our house into the out crops on the mountain - several times. Then when we get to Ashleigh's she tells us that it is illegal to pull a trailer over the mountain and that we were lucky that we didn't get a $500 fine and turned back by the cops. I think that we were lucky to make it down alive and with our house intact!

We spent the rest of the 28th on into the 31st in Basalt, CO with Ashleigh and Tricia (Denny was gone for work). Ashleigh taxied us around and showed us all the sites. We saw Aspen, Snowmass, the Ruedi Reservoir, the Frying Pan River, the Aspen Yacht Club, some old mining ghost town, and lots of other places that we can't remember the names of but they were neat. While we were out exploring Ryan's computer got a nasty virus that completely locked it down. (Spyware Security Scan 2009 for all of you computer literate). It was so bad that it took Farr two days to cure. (Thanks again! We really appreciate you fixing the old thing, Ryan would never have been able to figure out a new one! At least not without a lot of suffering on my ears. We owe you!)

On Friday the 31st Ryan finally drug me away from Tricia, Oh yeah and Ashleigh. We made it exactly 15 miles north of Rifle, CO when the radiator decided that it was done. So at 4:45 on a Friday we started trying to get a hold of a radiator shop. We finally found one that would order us a new radiator on Monday. Yeah I said Monday. So for the next three days we camped out at mile marker 15 on Hwy 13. Out of the 900 people that passed us everyday; not one single person stopped to see if we needed help in three days. We did have a couple of people honk at us for being so inconsiderate as to break down on the side of the road instead of somewhere more convenient for them. Well the break would have been an excellent time to catch you all up on our trip and to make this a shorter email, except that we were conserving energy and couldn't use our computers, phone, or lights. Besides the Internet took 10 minutes just to get me a list of repair shops, it would have taken hours to type up any kind of email. Mile marker 15 would have been a nice place if the traffic wasn't literally inches outside our windows.

Monday afternoon we finally had a new radiator and was on the road again. We went to Dinosaur, CO home of the Dinosaur National Monument and saw the cave drawings ( the dinosaur excavation building was closed). And made camp at the KOA in Vernal, CO. Not a long trip, but we felt that we deserved clean clothes, hot showers, a pool, electricity, and a place to walk the dog. This morning, Tuesday August 4th, we finally made some miles, forced to get on the Interstate for more than ten miles since leaving OKC (until today we had traveled more miles on dirt roads than interstate!). The truck is doing great with the new radiator. And Ryan and I both agree that Utah is a great state to take a road trip through. It was a nice drive with the countryside changing into something different and more beautiful with every mile. We are spending the night here in Willard and hope to make it to Twin Falls or Boise by tomorrow evening.

Goodnight and I promise to try harder to keep you updated.

Love,

Jen, Ryan, Sis and M&M