My only December post

Oh my gosh, the whole month of December almost got away from me! We get so busy with all there is to do at home with family and friends and volunteer activity...we'll need to get ourselves back on the road again to rest up!
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Gregg & I did take our feet on vacation for Christmas - to Ambergris Caye in Belize. Our pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sschin999/BelizeDec2009##





We had our annual holiday get-together with high school friends Betsy and Shirley and their families, with lots of kids joining us this year.

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See how well my kids behaved!


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We had a gift exchange with Sarah, Andy, Jeramie, and Michael at Andy's house, then went out for a good dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Chevy's.








Got to do my favorite volunteer things - selling at a bazaar to benefit International Street Angels of the World. Sarah, Judy and I cleared over $600 for the kids in need - and had fun doing it!

P.E.O. friends Bette and Martha and I got to go to the annual holiday decorating for Sterling Ranch, home for 18 developmentally disabled women, in Skull Valley.

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2009 was a VERY good year!!

New RV!!

Who-eeee! Are we excited!

2005 Fleetwood Discovery

New home-away-from-home, built for all the miles we plan to put on it, diesel for a quieter ride and easier trips up over mountains. Five feet longer at 39', more slides, more room inside. I think it's about 400 square feet, way larger than our former 320 square feet.

Gregg's up in Seattle buying it and driving it home while I am in Prescott getting the trusty Bounder spiffed up for Dean and Judy. Needless to say, I am anxious for Gregg to get home!!

Arizona

Sally's daughter Sarah, boyfriend Jeramie, and Great Dane Zeke - we all walk our 2nd annual Light the Night Walk in Glendale, raising awareness of blood cancers Leukemia and Lymphoma.




...................................................................................My friend Lee and her team walked the 3-Day 60 mile fundraising for Breast Cancer. I donned the gorilla costume again to cheer on the walkers. A new-found friend there, Leigh, wore my Mom's Energizer Bunny costume. My last-year-walker-buddy Mary took hundreds of pictures for walkers, posing with us. What fun that was! Hot in there but a whole lot more comfortable than my feet were during the 60 mile walk last year....and it all beats the heck out of the discomfort of cancer and chemo.
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Holy cow, we are exhausting ourselves being back home! So much to do! Seeing friends, catching up on everything, participating in my favorite fundraisers...oh yes, and shopping for a new RV!

We decided we need a little bigger and newer for our next long trips so we've sold ours to some of our very good RV friends here in town. They get it next week so we've been on our last trip in that Bounder we have loved so well. Spent several days in Tucson and Mesa shopping around RV lots, narrowing down what we want.

Home in Prescott again

Whew...we got home from Denver in just 2 days of Gregg's hard driving (he's like a pony returning to the barn when headed home). Lots of work to get unpacked and embroiled in all the things we do here at home. Days are flying by - so different from our laid-back life on the road.

It's beautiful here, Indian summer, warm weather. The trees are colorful. It seemed like Nebraska and Colorado skipped their color change this year and went straight to frozen.

Just before we left Denver, we experienced The Denver Gorilla Run ... what a kick.
See some here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8OhaB68llM



See our pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sschin999/DenverGorillaRun10312009

Fun with Sally's brother and family

That is my brother Bill, "Huge Hefner", editor of Cagemate Magazine, ready to walk in the 6th annual Denver Gorilla Run, raising funds to help the endangered Mountain Gorillas. I'll join him as Tilly Gorilly, Cagemate of the Year. More pictures later...
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This is my Sister-in-Law Lisa and my favorite cat ever - Daisy. She is so beautiful and soft and loves to be around people. However, she will only sit on a lap that has the Kansas City Chiefs blanket on it. So cat-like - I admire her.


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In here is my niece Molly in the Chaparral High School Marching Band, playing flute. We went to an all day competition where they advanced to state finals - first time ever for their school. Yay, Molly!
All the bands were great and the day was gorgeous.
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Bill, Lisa and Molly's deck on Thursday - heaviest October snowfall Denver area has had in 12 years.
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We need that to melt for Saturday's Gorilla Run!

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Our campground, the beautiful Cherry Creek State Park. Good thing we got a good bike ride in the day before this snow. Our bikes are buried! Look at the shelf of snow hanging over the roof of the RV. Gregg had to climb up and shovel the roof! But we stay cozy and warm inside. We were the only campers on our loop with only a few others in other loops. It's been fun being a little isolated.

Colorado weather

Yesterday, chilly and clear. I just put my earflaps down and we did a 21 mile bike ride along the beautiful Cherry Creek

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These are our neighbors in Cherry Creek State Park.

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Here's our new neighbor today... Mr. Coyote. Actually the Mrs. was here too but I didn't get her in the picture with him.

We are expecting to get pretty well buried in the white stuff today. We've come to enjoy it, just holing up and reading a lot. It's beautiful out there. In two days it will be melting; beautiful weather is expected for our Denver Gorilla Run on Halloween.

More Stats

MORE STATS

6+ months on the road

185 nights

Average cost per night $10

101 nights paid for, 84 free

About 25 nights in big-box parking lots

(WalMart, Costco, Kohls, churches, schools, museums)

Many thanks to many relatives with great

campground driveways!

Miles traveled = 8,581

Average 46 miles per day = just right!

Highest elevation: RV at 11,990 Loveland Pass

Highest elevation: Us at 12,000 Mayflower Meadow

Books read: 41 between us

Rainy and snowy days: We don't count them.

Great days: 185

Are we tired of this yet? NOT AT ALL

Are we ready to come home yet?

OK, for a brief visit,

then we'll be off again,

headed to Florida next,

hopefully by February.

Hiking at 12,000 feet

I love these hardy little grasses that bend in the wind and make tiny snow angels!

Our friend Wayne took us to a great little hike in Mayflower Meadow. We were between Breckenridge/Frisco and Leadville.

We drove in a ways on a forest road of nearly pure ice.

Plenty of old mining buildings to make the hike more interesting.

Perfect weather for our hike yesterday and now cold and light snow are back today. But it is beautiful here. And Gregg gets to do some more experimenting with keeping water pipes warm - trying Christmas lights wrapped around them tonight!

Old favorite campground, New camera

We're in Breckenridge now for a few days to see friends Wayne & Patricia. Good place for me to test a new camera. I seem to wear them out so fast...

So far, I don't think this Nikon is taking as nice a picture as my old Canon. Any tips for me?

These views are from our RV door and our dining room window. What a beautiful place this is.

In love with Loveland

I love this town! We can see the snow- capped Rockies out our front window and pretty Boyd Lake out our side window. There is a nice long bike trail right outside our door. Weather's perfect. Heaven!

Snow-capped Rockies in the background.

The sun shines in Wyoming!

There is a blue sky here; we had begun to wonder. And wind, 42 mph gusts. The wind actually sucked me out the motorhome door yesterday. I am not kidding!
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But the sky is a beautiful blue again and my photos have color again. They had been so monochromatic this past week with all the snow and cloudy skies. The snow is all melted now and we are hoping to see the Indian Summer that it appeared had been skipped.
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My brother happens to be working in Wyoming this week so we will meet him for dinner tonight in Cheyenne. Fun! We are in an RV park at a bison ranch where there is said to be a herd of 3,000 bison. We can see a small herd from the RV park. Interesting things around Cheyenne should keep us happy here for several days. We toured the state capital building yesterday with its small Senate and House chambers. This is the least populated state with less than 600,000 total population. I marvel at that small population supporting an entire state; they don't even have a state income tax, sales taxes are only 6% and the state is operating in the black. Revenues are mostly from their natural resources, businesses such as ranching and tourism. Nice place to live if it weren't for the wind and the cold! That must be what keeps the population so low...

Global warming...

........................They apparently haven't heard of global warming in Nebraska or Wyoming...
We have been freezing! Gregg (my hero) is a master of stringing extension cords, placing portable heaters near water pipes and even putting our hair dryer to work to keep our water from freezing again. We moved from North Platte to Scott's Bluff, NE and found even deeper snow. Then today we moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming and found the whole entire city(the capital of the state!) to be without power! So the generator is keeping us warm tonight. This is sure an adventure ... and yes, we do still claim to be having fun at this!
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Attitude is everything.

Look at how beautiful Nebraska is in its snow.
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We visited Scott's Bluff National Monument today where about a quarter million emigrants passed on the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails in the mid 1800's. The Pony Express also rode through here. I have been amazed at the landscape here - not how I'd ever pictured Nebraska before as I had only seen it from I-80.

Something we seldom see in Arizona...

The weather forecast guessed 2-3 inches of snow for

North Platte, NE.

We got about 16 inches!

Gregg's up on the roof now shoveling snow off

the top of our slideout.

19 degrees last night.

A frozen water pipe had Gregg out doing repairs this morning.

He's my hero.

Maybe we've stayed too long at the fair???

We are poking our way through Nebraska with an

October 30th due date in Denver area.

Otherwise we'd be heading south by now for sure!

Nebraska

What a cute, happy girl this Great Granddaughter Jordie Schindel is...almost 6 months old. Scoots around and pulls herself up, reaches for everything, smiles ALL the time. We'll miss seeing her and all the grandkids and family as we head on west now.

It's getting COLD! Forecast for the next several days even includes some SNOW!!

Here's how we dressed for watching parades, football games, soccer games.

That's Gregg under the pretty tree. That's daughter-in-law Michelle and grandson Nick in the blankets.

deja vu

Remember these days???
We are getting a kick out of going to High School Homecoming parades, games and coronation of royalty in the high school gym...despite cold, rainy, windy weather trying hard to ruin it all. We went to Hinton, IA's yesterday and Shelby, NE's today, more to come tomorrow.

Hanging around...

We are taking it easy just hanging around Iowa and Nebraska. I got to sit on Gary's pretty little white horse that he is training. I say "sit on" because she's not trained enough yet for me to really ride her.

Taylor practising point.

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We girls in height order.

Gregg's daughter Cindy and her girls.

Taylor's just passed me up and hit 5 feet, a feat I've never accomplished.



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Grandpa & his granddaughters.
Taylor's almost 13. Hannah just turned 9.