A special evening

Friday evening was indeed a special time. Sharleen and I were able to meet some special cousins for the first time. Why we haven't done it earlier I don't know but we are sure glad we did it now.

A group photo was required so we all got together and Logan pressed the button. We had a great evening with Harold doing the BBQ (he's a great chef) and Ray and I supervising.... I just watched and ate a lot.... it's what I do best!
Mom and Dad (Ginny and Arnie) lower left joined us from Quincy for the evening and Cindy ( next to Sharleen) and Beth rounded out the gang.

It seems that Grandma ( Ginny) had a birthday Friday so the grand kids and a couple of friends presented her with cupcakes. What a great looking gang of young adults!





We had a super evening of getting to know each other and catching up. Thanks again to all for a great time. The food was excellent and the time we spent was precious. See you next year??
Off to Quincy tomorrow and Arnie's Acres RV Park.

Fall in Coeur d'Alene

We're in the Pacific Northwest again as we are every fall and as usual it's a great time.

Lake Coeur d'Alene is spectacular; set in pine covered hills and clear and cool.
We took a 90 minute boat ride on the lake on a warm and breezy day that was as good as it gets here.

Since friend Gail wasn't here this year I had to fill in on the fun stuff. Here I comfort a moose that just missed Gail. We took a three mile hike around Tubbs hill near downtown Coeur d'Alene. The trail started just behind us and went around the hill along the lake shore.

We met the newest arrival to Sharleen's family. Madeline is just a year old and just as cute as they come.

How can you not want to just hug Madeline?

Mom and Madeline... what a pair!

And... grandpa Jerry with the cowgirl.

We're off to Spokane today and dinner with cousins (my side). More down the road..... I'm being lazy on this trip but will try to do a little blogging along the way.

The gang

I'm having a little issue posting.... so..... I'm just going to try this.

We had a great week with the cousins from Minnesota. Here's a shot at the favorite activity

Back at the beach

We made it to the beach (the goal of the trip) on Monday afternoon. A good trip from San Diego but hard work. Traffic from San Diego to Santa Barbara is tough.

Pismo Beach is located just South of San Luis Obispo and about 75 miles North of Santa Barbara. 25 miles North of Pismo is the little town of Morro Bay. We walked the town and headed for the beach.

We watched some surfers having fun in the waves. No big waves but large enough so they could surf.

Back at the RV park, we sat in the trailer and watched the birds. The site we have overlooks a lagoon which empties into the Pacific about 400 yards away.

Long walks on the beach here are required. The beach is wide and flat and just great for walking. Sharleen says we walked about 7 miles yesterday.

Just one last beach shot and time to head for home. Tomorrow morning it's on the road again with about a 300 mile drive home. Time to get back to the real world and start planning the next trip. Looks like August for a loop in the Pacific northwest again. Think we'll start by heading to Salt Lake then on to Washington and Oregon.

Until then...... have fun.... we are.

winter in the desert part 3... Casa Grande

We headed to Casa Grande to spend a week with our snowbird friends Jack and Gail. Pretty tough life down there..... up by 10:00am, Lunch at noon, then 2:00pm pool time and 4:00pm happy hour. Might have to spend a month down there next year.

We visited the Casa Grande ruins... the remains of ancient people who lived and farmed here hundreds of years ago. the cover over the ruins is to protect and preserve the ruins. Pretty interesting place to visit.

If you will remember from our trip last fall, Gail was always getting into something. Well, nothing has changed! She just had to crawl through a small doorway in the ruins. How about those shorts and that tan..... Minnesotans eat your heart out!

No visit to Arizona would be complete without some cactus viewing. I love the Saguaro cactus....l each one is different than the last and all are spectacular.

Just had to include this one..... Jack saw some sand (like there is none in Arizona) and was pointing it out to Gail.... I think it was really a round tailed desert squirrel.

The last day we visited the Biosphere 2 project near Tucson. This was a two year experiment in the 90's to see if man could live in a self contained environment ( like a facility on Mars would need to be) Eight people (4 men and 4 women) were sealed in and the goal was a two year experiment. They made it 16 months before running out of oxygen. The facility is still used for research by the University of Arizona.

We're now in San Diego visiting Kevin and on Monday will head up to Pismo Beach then home.

Time goes way too fast doing this kind of thing. We go to Washington and Oregon in August.... more at that time.

Winter in the desert part 2

I think this falls under the heading of winter sports in Sierra Vista. Sharleen's brother Rick is adding on to his garage so..... time to get out the bobcat and get busy.
Rick was definitely having fun.... me ..... I was on the business end of a one lever Mexican backhoe (shovel) While he had more fun than I did, I still enjoyed our time and I got some exercise in the process.






Since this trip was mainly about family and friends I needed to include a picture of Sharleen, Her Mom, Aggie and Sassy the wonder dog. Can you tell who is who?






Sharleen celebrated her 29th birthday ( ya right)
while we were there. So... we went to a Greek restaurant and had a great meal with the whole family. Enough of this family stuff... on to Casa Grande!

Winter in the desert

This post has been a long time in getting done..... busy in the desert but here it is!

At the end of January we headed south to Quartzsite for a couple of days then on to Sierra Vista, Az. This is the little park where we park with the Huachucha mountians in the background. It's high desert (5000ft) and pretty anytime of the year

We headed to the Titan missile museum for a tour and some interesting information. This is one of 54 intercontinental ballistic missile silos which were operational from 1963 through 1983. As you can see there is very little above ground but lots to see underground.

53 of the 54 silos were destroyed in cooperation with the Soviet Union and this is the only one remaining. We headed down underground to the control room which is preserved in pristine condition. The guide did a simulated missile launch for us. Pretty crude electronics by today's standards.

The Titan 2 missile sits in the silo as it did when it was operational. This is looking up at the nuclear warhead and the top of the silo. If you are in the Tucson area I recommend a half day trip to the Titan site. I'll post this and continue later today.