How do you know when it is time to go?

Well I don't have an answer to that for sure.

I know I am not leaving until Bobbi gets home.  She had not to be missed family business to attend to.

She should be home around midnight;; No we are not leaving tonight, though I have threatened to pick her up at the airport with the truck and trailer!!!

I think most stuff is packed.  Tried to be really conscience of weight but then I got on the scale this morning and decided it was a losing cause once I put my but in the truck seat.  

We will both have our cell phones working on the entire trip.  Well that is when we are in range of a cell tower.  Probably not every night but most so leave a message if you need to talk to us.

I am really tired of puppy sad eyes every time I open the door and take something else to the trailer.  Bobbi always leaves me with crappy chores.  Don't know if she will be able to walk out the door with the pups giving her sad eyes.  Might have to blindfold her to get her out.

I know we are both excited to leave on this trip.  Bet we are just as excited to be home at the end of the journey.  Will probably know for sure if we will be able to spend lots of time in the trailer together when I retire next year.

Hopefully the first three days will be pretty uneventful just lots of miles each day.  The fun will start at the Border crossing.  I still don't know how much wine Bobbi has stashed in the trailer.  Probably more than we can legally take across the border but as long as I don't know I can't lie.  It's all on her.  Well its off to finish last minute stuff, then a nap before I pick up B at the airport.

It is almost time

After months and months of planning and Dreaming we are feeling a lot of panic.  Bobbi flies out mid week for a quick trip to Colorado for a big event.  She gets back about midnight one day and we leave at first light the next morning

I am putting just a little bit of pressure on her to have all of her stuff in the trailer before she flies.  She is just organized enough to pull it off.  She must be feeling confident because today she decided that Bess (that's the trailer's name) really needed a bath so she spent today washing the trailer.  So for the first 100 miles we will probably have the cleanest trailer on the road.

I hope to get the truck loaded this weekend with all the stuff I think I might need in case something besides my brain fails on this trip. Weight is the enemy on this trip so I am trying to choose only essential gear.  Harder than it might sound, especially when it comes to electronics.

The 90 degree days are making it rather unpleasant to do manual labor.  Open door take two steps wipe sweat out of your eyes, go back into the air conditioned house and repeat until you manage to get one or two items to the truck or trailer.  Go in put feet up and re-hydrate so you can try again 2 hours later.

The pups are starting to get nervous cause they know something is up cause the spare room has stuff laid out all over the bed.  I just don't know how we are going to manage to tell them to stay when we walk out of the house to leave on this trip.  We have a great house and dog sitter lined up and as long as they are fed according to their schedule they probably won't miss us too much.  We are hoping the sitter shows more discipline than we do cause our Sprout is a little to hefty for her own good per the vet visit today!!!

So about 7 months ago we bought a handy dandy little GPS for the truck.  Bought it early so my navigator would have plenty of time to practice with it so she could get me through the major cities.  In seven months we probably have taken 15 road trips in which practice could have happened.  Could have happened if we would have remembered to bring it!!!  So we will learn as we go.

So it is a nice cool evening here and I should be up and about getting stuff done but as usual I would rather stay here and try to remember how to work this blog.  I promise I will get essential clothes in the trailer before the end of this week. Yeah right!!!

So will try to get another update done before we actually take off.

So until later  Bobbi n Sylvia

Are we camping in Denali???

Only 5 months until we leave on a journey that will take us to Denali National Park.  Today we started talking about things we wanted to do while we were at the park.

Now remember we will be pulling our fully self contained travel trailer complete with air conditioning and a wonderfully efficient furnace, nice running hot water and a flushing toilet.  I said to B,  why don't we take our little tent and plan to camp out one night in the park.  She looked at me like I was a total stranger and went right back to her book. 

I sure did pause in my thinking a bit before I said "Well Wonder Lake looks like a great campground."  So not believing me yet again she sets her book aside and grabs her laptop.  These are the first images she sees; Camping in Wonder Lake  Not too bad she says.  Can we get all our camping gear there?  Well no I say it would be pretty primitive tenting; no cots, no two burner stove, no porta pot etc.   Well that brought on quite a glare.  She did admit that it sure was pretty though.

Wouldn't it be great if we could say that we spent the night camping in Denali?  There is that have you met me before look again.  Being the diligent researcher she continues to search for more info on Wonder Lake and suddenly these strange sounds begin to come from her vicinity.  Then she shares this image; Essential Attire for Wonder Lake   Why do you think these folks have mosquito head wear, long sleeves, long pants and gloves?  Well maybe they forgot their repellent.   Needless to say I have yet to hear anything beyond her final humph as she closed her laptop. 

So stay tuned as we begin to plan and negotiate our adventure.

Seattle in December Are we crazy????

The plan to go to Seattle in December sounded really good when the plans were made when it was still warm and dry.  As the days shortened and the temperatures cooled I comforted myself with this little fact: between October and May Seattle gets less rain than Boston, New York City or Atlanta, GA.

The plan was a grand one:  we would take a leisurely drive from our home to Eugene, Oregon and catch a morning train to Seattle.  We were traveling with our dear friends Greg & Pat.  Greg generously offered to take care of the train reservations and Bobbi & I would make Eugene lodging arrangements.  Greg called a couple of times to check with us and get approval for his plans.  What none of us anticipated was that getting up at 3:30 am to make the early morning train was getting harder and harder for these aging baby boomers.  I think we all remembered 1969 when time didn"t matter or if we ever saw 3:30 am it was because we had not been to bed yet. It was a wonderful thing we had a fabulous meat at the  Oregon Electic Station Restaurant.  We boarded the train in the dark and drizzle in Eugene.  

 The trip went well we traveled business class and I would highly recommend it.  We arrived in Seattle mid day and had a thought;  Why not try UBER, the largest ride share company in the world.  Well evidently Seattle is one of the few cities where UBER is not so popular.  Stood around for about 30 minutes being told that the ride was arriving, complete with description of vehicle and plate number.  Finally gave up and took a delightful taxi ride.  Finally got a text from UBER saying the ride had canceled.  Checked in the Sheraton and started out to explore Seattle.  We were about 5 blocks from Pike Place Market.  Wonderful floral displays as usual and more kinds of produce and fresh fish than to be found in one location.  Had fish n chips at Lowell's.  

I just about work out my Fitbit it was in a constant state of shock as we walked over 5 miles everyday. 

We rode the Monorail to Seattle Center.  Our first stop was the EMP (Experience Music Project) and a most beautiful bulding.  Greg went to warp speed  in the SciFi Museum.  

 We had a wonderful lunch at Sky City   You know the one on the Space Needle!!!

We toured the Dale Chihuly Garden and Glass  He is truly a talented artist.

Bobbi and I took a Ferry boat ride at night from Seattle to Bremerton.  Did I say we love Ferry Boats.  The Seattle Skyline is truly beautiful from Elliot Bay at night.

We went in search of the best biscuits in Seattle and were directed to Bainbridge Island and the Streamliner Diner.  We spent several hours wondering the delightful town of Winslow and did a bit of shopping.  Then we were back in Seattle.
  
Did I mention that it was the weekend the SF 49ers came to town to play the Seattle Seahawks!!! We walked from the ferry terminal up towards Pioneer Square to the gallery of one of my favorite photographers; Art Wolfe.  As we were exploring others shops in the area we were recommended to go to Marcela's Creole Cookery  we went for the Whiskey Sours and the Hurricanes.  We then fell in love with the Bread Pudding.

On our day of departure we spent a good deal of the morning trying to find Bread Pudding at Pike Place Market but no luck.  We got to King Street Station and had some time to spare so Greg and I walked around Century Link Field.  Did I mention it was game day for the 49ers and Seahawks.  What energy and fun it was.  When the fireworks went off to start the game all the car alarms were going off from the vibrations!. 

We had a great time and would do it again in a heartbeat but alas there are still so many journeys to take and memories to make.  Maybe we will return and maybe not.

Autumn in Northern California

We have been having such a wonderful Indian Summer this month that we just needed to go camping.  Our friends ask us to join them as we journeyed to Northern California.  We were going to explore Lassen National Park,  also Hat Creek is there and it is a world class trout fishery.  This is an easy 1/2 drive for us so we were all for it.  There is no cell service there but then we hardly had time to miss it.  We sat by the fire every night and enjoyed the view and great conversation.  I did finally figure out which outlets brought cable TV to the trailer.  We were hoping to watch the Oregon game but no luck but they won anyway.  GO DUCKS!!
We had a great day exploring Subway Cave and our First day in Lassen Nat Park we got to the visitor center and took the 1.8 mile walk around Manzanita Lake, the head waters for Hat Creek.  We planned to go back the next day to hike some more.  I think the most essential skill for folks on the road is ADAPTABILITY.  Our second day I pulled up to the ranger window at Lassen and handed over my old folks free entry pass.  The ranger looks at us smiles and points to a sign that says Vehicle Free Day.  I grin and say I guess you don't need our free pass today.  Ranger gets puzzled look on his face and says to the poor old woman,  well Vehicle Free Day means we are not allowing any motorized vehicles in the park today. You can drive to the visitor center but no further.  Today is dedicated to bikers and hikers.  4 really crabby folks gave the ranger well practiced stink eye and turned around.  Disappointment reigned.  Well we are all a creative bunch and we decided to explore and see what we could find.  We hit the jackpot.  We found the Manton Valley AVA

Bird on a rock in Hat Creek

 Great hosts, better wines and fair prices.  Thank goodness we had a wonderful designated driver in Greg.  He did cause some concern with the route he chose to take home but as usual he came through with flying colors.

Water is flowing just fine

We hurried back to camp as Bobbi's family was going to join us for dinner.  It was really good to see everyone.  It was a great time catch up and hear all of Jim's new versions of his stories!!    

Bird's Nest behind our camp spot

Our little bit of heaven with friends

This coot dove all the way to the bottom
 of Manzanita Lake
 and came up in camo.

Subway Cave

Manzanita Lk and Mt Lassen

Some carnivore has been eating squirrel!!!

We really had a great time in this part of California and would recommend it.

Fall Colors along Hat creek

Is there anything better than shopping!!!

What a fun weekend B and I had.  We pissed off the dogs by putting them in the kennel but who can seriously shop worrying about the pups.  So we escaped and drove up to Wilsonville and went to Camping World.  What a great place to pick up essential stuff and not so essential stuff.  We even found some new rules to guide us.  

After all that excitement we had to go check into the hotel and count our coins before we tackled the Woodburn Factory Stores.  We scored some really good stuff there.  So our next trip is planned in about 2 weeks and we will get an update here as soon as possible.

So one of the things I was surprised to hear was that we probably should really have something called a voltage regulator.  Well being a guru of all things electrical I carefully nodded my head and said sure  NOT!!!  Who knew there was more to getting electricity to our happy home. Turns out if the amount and strength of the electricity that goes from the power thingy majig that you plug the trailer into fluxuates too much you are in danger of burning up handy little appliances like the frig, air conditioning, the converter or the microwave.  Well we might not have any trouble replacing a couple of hundred dollar miker but the other stuff gets pretty spendy. Considering many of the places to park your RV on the Alaskan Highway have the power generated by local generators and we are really unlucky at gambling;  Needless to say we are proud owner of a brand spanking new voltage regulator.  

How we travel

We travel many different ways; sometimes just by car, sometimes with our tent; sometimes with our travel trailer.  Sometimes we drive until we drop and rest until the sun comes up.  Sometimes we mosey just a short way down the road and set up camp early.  Sometimes we travel with our dogs.

Most importantly we live each day with a sense of adventure, a curious mind, love in our hearts and chocolate in the cooler.  Usually a bottle of wine is pretty close by also.

One of us is a retired social worker and the other one is still slaving away at the office.  So we mostly are getting away on long weekends right now.