December Daze...

Where does the time go?  Being "stationary", it seems like time flies faster than when we are "on the road"!  Last blog, we just got back from Hawaii, and now, here we are at the end of December already!  What have we been doing?

After we painted the wall, and hung some of the art, it was time to "update" our couch.  It just didn't fit in with our new look!  I wanted it to be a plain (off) white.  I've gotten into Pinterest lately, so turned to it, and found a number of blogs on how to reupholster using cotton drop cloths.  Sounded easy enough.  So, two drop cloths, a bunch of Velcro, seam binding, and two weeks later...a "new couch"!   I have a love of 1950's tablecloths, and have collected a number of them to use in sewing projects.  I used several for the arm rests and pillows (reversible), and will again on seat cushions for my dining chairs when I tackle that project (soon).  It's not perfect, but we like it, and it beats spending hundreds of dollars on a new couch!  ;-) 

Thanksgiving brought my older sister Bette out to visit us for a week.  What a treat that was to have her here, even if only for a short time.  We invited another couple to join us for our very small feast and had a lovely Thanksgiving for our first one in our new tiny home.  I was so busy being the hostess, I forgot to take pictures!  But the day was lovely and we all had a great time!

 She and I went flower and plant shopping and had a ball!  She loves plants as much as I do, so I was saving that trip for when she was here.  I have a ton of pots & containers that needed filling, so, off we went to the store to gather up soil and various goodies to fill them.  Oh what fun we had!  Ran out of money before we ran out of ideas...

The week went by way to fast, the sun was shining brightly and each day I took her out and showed her our great park and tried to entice her to move here from rainy, cloudy, cold Washington...hee hee..

December brought the chance to sell some of our stuff!  Twice a year Happy Trails has a Yard Sale!  So...we drug out all our goodies and did our best to sell, sell, sell!  Well, I think the Goodwill did better than we did!  We did manage to sell some (about $100 worth) but not as much as I sure would have liked, but, what we didn't, we mostly hauled off.  My friend Delores has introduced me to "Swip Swap" and others, it's an online selling app that I've been pretty successful with.  I only use it for the larger pieces, as it's not worth it for me to to take pictures and then meet up with someone for items less than $25 (in my opinion).  I've sold about half my items this way...sure wish the other half would go, as I need the space!!  ;-)   It's fun though and you get to meet some nice folks too.  I've also held on to the cloths I'm selling as we have a big clothing sale in January and I'll give that a try next.  What the heck?  Right?

Did I tell you I joined the Theater Group here?  Well, we've started getting ready for the 2019 production.  The theme for it is "Starry, Starry, Night".  I'm in 4 spots.  At our holiday party, our costume designer was talking with each of us, then was asking around if anyone knew how to sew?  Of course my hand went up...next thing I know, I'm helping with reversible satin, 2 color vests!  Oh boy!  As my daughter laughingly reminded me, I have a tendency to "jump right in" and then the next thing I know is I'm in charge!  Oops!
Told her, "Oh no, not this time, I don't know enough about this stuff to ever be in charge, no thank you!"

We've still been working on projects.  The latest is my craft chest.  I inherited my Mother's amour.  She had it for many years, and I've had it for about 50 years.  It was a nice cedar one, but it's been kicked around from house to house and suffered a lot of heat and cold and abuse, and showed it.  It needed a lot of repair work.  Jack always was ready to get rid of it, but it's the only thing I have of hers.  I asked him to fix it, and to put shelves inside and thus, turn it into a craft chest for me.  He did a great job.  I then sanded the whole thing and then painted the outside and voila!  New craft chest!   I was then able to unload two very large boxes into the chest.  Now I can see, and get to all my wonderful crafts easily and joyfully!  Yea!  The only thing left is I want to decoupage a design on the front.  I just haven't found the right one yet. 

Being "alone" this year, it hasn't felt much like Christmas to me, but we did do one thing that was very special.  Our friends told us about a Christmas show called the Celebration of Christmas done at a church in Phoenix.  It has flying angels, live animals, singing, great costumes, etc.  I had shared that I had always wanted to go to the one in Garden Grove CA at the Crystal Cathedral and never made it (and now it's gone).  So, they organized a small group of us, and got tickets and we all went there and then afterwards all went to dinner.  What a great night and wonderful show!  The theme is, people are stuck at the airport on Christmas Eve, with all the flights cancelled due to weather...and various stories with various couples...ending of course with the story of Christmas.  Just beautiful.

We finally did put up a couple of decorations outside.  That's it for this year though, we will do more next year.  2019 will be a better year, for us and for everyone!  Cheers!

Marie

A Fast Five Years...

The last of December is always the time I use to reflect on our year and sum everything up but this is not only the end of the year, it also marks the end of us being on the road for a full five years!  That's a big deal for us...as we only going to "do this" for one year, and here we are, still tootling down the road after five years!  Wow!  Hard to believe... That's what our friends keep saying too!  They always think it's about two or three when the subject comes up, then shake their heads when we tell them it's "five".  The next question is always "when are you going to quit?" and our answer always is "I don't know...when we find a place we like enough to settle down to, I guess!"  ;-)  Ah, the life of a road gypsy...

Our year started out along the sunny beaches of California, just slowly meandering down the coast.  It was lovely.  We even scored a spot right by the water and built ourselves a small fire one night while watching and listening to the ocean waves coming in and caught a glorious sunset to cap it all off!

We "crossed off" several things on my list this year...One of the biggest was finally getting to North Dakota, a state that we've been trying to get to for years!  Jack just had to see "the Chipper" in Fargo, and I'm determined to camp in every state, and not just 'travel through' them.  We had such a fun time at the Fargo Welcome Center.  They even have a box of hats for people to put on for pictures!  They really get into the spirit of it all there.

I wished it were our last state, but unfortunately, we will have one more to camp in...and that's Ohio!  But, that gives us a goal for 2017!  ;-)

We also got to go up into the St. Louis Gateway Arch, something I've wanted to do all my life.  That was a wonderful thrill.  One I won't ever forget.  St. Louis was a beautiful city too, with lots to see and do.  We really enjoyed ourselves there.  Springfield Ill was another wonderful stop because that is where Lincoln was from.  I am a big fan of Lincoln's and really enjoyed being able to see his tomb, the town, all the historical buildings, etc.  I loved it all.  Another place on our list was Crater Lake.  With all our travels back and forth in that area, you would have thought we would have been there before, but no.  Wow, what a gorgeous place.  We were in awe.  We sure lucked out on the weather that day too.  Couldn't have been better.

A couple of highlights for us were "trees" this year.  First was when we visited Sequoia National Park and the second is when we visited the Redwoods afterward in Humboldt.  We just couldn't get over their beauty.  The peace that it gave us was lovely and long lasting.

We always manage to slip in a train trip or two, and this year was no exception!  We did two small ones this time, one in Arkansas and one in Northern California.  Always fun, and you get to see things you can't see otherwise.  Each train is a little different too, so it's always a "learning experience"!  ;-)

We spent Father's Day in an "old fashioned" way this year...watching families playing baseball together, having homemade picnics, playing catch, listening to the radio, and just spending the day together - but in a very special place.  The original film location for the movie Field of Dreams (with Keven Costner) in Dyersville Iowa.  It was wonderful.  Towns people bring their own balls, bats, etc. and just come on in and use the field, sit on the bleachers; there are a couple of tables to use for picnics and just like it's 1960, play ball and have a good time.  The owner's have kept it up, still live in the house and probably look out the window and enjoy watching it as much as we did.  No charge, no hassle, just good old fashion good neighbor community fun.  Nice.

We celebrated our 20th Wedding Anniversary this year.  With the whole United States to choose from, where do you go?  Well, we decided to go back to one of our favorites, the Grand Tetons National Park.  Only while we were there, we "celebrated" by spending one night inside the lodge!  We had a nice dinner and a nice stay! Sweet!

We continued to meet up with family and friends along the way, which always makes our trips so enjoyable!

Every year we "go on vacation"...that's where we leave the RV and go somewhere without it.  This year we flew to Hawaii.  Maui and Kauai to be exact.  Our trip was wonderful, and we learned something important too...Life is precious, you never know what is going to happen next, so enjoy every moment.  We were in a terrible auto accident that took the life of the other two drivers and through the grace of God we were spared and uninjured.

With that thought...here are our stats for the year:

We stayed at 66 campgrounds, for a total of 279 nights
Total campground fees: $10,587.54
(That averages about $37.95 a night, which is about right...some places were gratefully low, with others, like California being the highest, but overall, most places have pretty much stayed the same this year)

Mileage for the RV: 14,476
Mileage for the toad: 12,350
Gasoline for the RV: $5,210.00
Gasoline for the toad: $1,268.00
Propane: $65.00
Maintenance & Repairs RV: (muffler extension, brakes, etc) $3,532.00

Thanks for "traveling along with us"!  Here's to a wonderful 2017 filled with new adventures and fabulous surprises! 

...kicking back in the desert of California,  Marie