Another Update - Feb - April

February: We stayed put for a month at North Ranch. There's lots to do here. Never a boring moment: line dancing, beading, jam sessions, breakfast in the park on Sat., ice-cream social on Sun., dinner and karaoke in Yarnell on Fri, and visiting with friends at happy hour. The last week of Feb. Lila and I went to Las Vegas to paint for a week at the Creative Painting Convention. I started 9 paintings and finished some. Here are copies of my favorite ones:

Arches National Park
Oil painting - Jean Bass 2011

Watercolor - Jean Bass 2011

March: March started off with a bang. We had a big celebration at North Ranch. It's called La Fiesta to celebrate finally getting the deeds to our lots in the development. We celebrated with a big bon-fire, a parade the next morning, lunch, and games. We played our music at the bon-fire:

At the bon-fire.

L to R: Charlie, Jean, Willard, Rick

Getting ready to perform

The parade:

Jean in car on right.

Line dancing before the parade.

Line dancers - Jean is in the back row and far right.

After La Fiesta we packed it up and went to Tuscon for the Chapter 32 Rally for a week. We had about 40 rigs there. Some of the activities were: eating, playing music, campfire, card making, silent auction, eating, used book sale, eating, games, eating, touring the area, eating. We had so much fun I forgot to take any pictures.

Then we headed back to North Ranch.

April: We worked in our small yard. Here are some of the pictures of our results:

Our storage trailer - Willard works his jigsaw
puzzles in there. We now have baby birds
in the window box.

Our bird bath for the many birds
in the area in the Spring.

This is where I love to relax with a book,
reflecting, visiting, meditating.

The Sage by our door.

My little veg. garden: squash, green beans,

potatoes, onions, eggplant, radishes, lettuce, carrots, basil, and cucumbers.

Several weeks ago I (Jean) had a mini-stroke. We made it to the stroke center at Del Web hospital in Surprise within the 3 hour window when they can reverse the effects of the stroke. I was in the hospital for several days. And thanks to the doctors and Heavenly Father I am in full recovery. It was indeed a wake-up call.

Our plans are to stay at North Ranch this summer. Of course, you never know. We might get hitch-up itch and move on down the road. Better keep the light on for us. 

And Time Marches On.........

DECEMBER -  After a wonderful Thanksgiving with Dan and his family, our heart strings were pulled toward Alvin, TX. We decided to travel once again to the Gulf Coast. So, we packed up and off we went. It took us three days to get to Miller RV Park in Johnson City. Robbie, Haunani, Palani, and Alii came for a visit. I fixed Chicken'N Dumplings for supper, then we all went into town to see the Christmas lights. What a wonderful surprise. It was breathtaking. What fun we had that evening.

We left the next morning for Alvin to visit with Barbara, Harrel and Alice. We had a wonderful visit. Sonny's brother let us park at his RV park at Chocolate Bayou. Alice and I got to spend some quality time together. I spent the night with her and we went to a great seafood restaurant for dinner. On Saturday she picked me up and we drove around Alvin. It brought back a lot of great memories. Willard and Harrel managed to play a round of golf. Jeanie, Michael and Yvonne joined us all for dinner one evening. It was good to touch base with them once again. We went over to Mary and Robert's home for an afternoon visit. Bud and his friend came over for a visit while we were there. It was so good to see them again. One day while at Walmart, we ran into Pat, Willard's cousin. We hadn't seen her in years. It was a nice surprise. On Saturday morning we headed for the Woodlands to visit with Randy and Lisa. Randy made pancakes for us all. The girls were all home for Christmas break and it was great seeing them once again. My they have all grown into such lovely young ladies.

After a week of visiting with relatives, we started back toward Arizona. On the way, we stopped by to visit with Willard's cousin, Edres, and her husband, John, at Canyon Lake. We left early the next morning in the misting rain. We were glad to get back to North Ranch just before a rain storm and in time for the holiday festivities.

On Christmas Day, we joined about 200 others for Christmas Dinner.

JANUARY: We spent the first part of January getting ready for the Alfa Roadrunner's Quartzsite Campout. We were the Wagon Masters this year and had to make a lot of arrangements and do a lot of planning. We arrived a week early to set up camp. On Wed. we entertained with our music at the Escapees Happy Hour. It went really well. The next day we got a chance to have lunch with some Indiana friends, Jeanie and Jim. It was good to visit with them again.

And I celebrated my Birthday by having dinner at the Quartzsite Yacht Club with Dan, Arlene, Bud, Jan, Deena, Avery, and Terilu. Everyone in the restaurant sang Happy Birthday to me. Oh what a fun way to celebrate the big 70. When I got home I read all my Birthday wishes from my Facebook friends. It was a perfect day.  I am so blessed. Now, onward into another decade.

(This is a picture Robin took last year, but it give you a visual of our annual Q Campout)

By Saturday we had 32 Alfas at the Campout. With lots of help, we were able to feed 65 people the first night at the Wagon Master's Dinner. We entertained at the campout twice, had coffee and donuts each morning and Happy Hour each afternoon. We also shared meals together, had a Walk Thru of some of the Alfas, shared ideas and solved problems concerning our coaches and living in them full time. It was a wonderful week with great friends. We even touched base with Sue and Jim, some newbys we met in Indiana this summer.

Back at the Ranch, we batted down for some of the coldest nights ever at North Ranch. And our furnace motor started making a loud noise. It seems the barrings were bad, so we had to order a new one. Willard went to Prescott to get us a bigger electric heater to keep us warm. We are not used to 19 degree weather in the Sunshine State.

That just about brings me up to date on our life on the road. All is well.........

Remembering 2010

I sure had a challenge choosing the pictures for this album. Hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun creating it.

A free scrapbooking design by Smilebox

Out with October In with November

October ended with a "Alice In Wonderland" Wedding. Danny and Carylie got married on the 30th. We attended the wedding in Cedar City, UT. 

After the wedding, we went to Death Valley to attend the 49th Encampment.

We were dry camping with about 400 rigs.  

We did some site seeing.

We also attended a Mime/Dance by Sandy Scheller entitled"If These Walls Could Talk" at the Amargosa Opera House at Death Valley Junction.

Each afternoon we played music with a group in camp. We enjoyed Happy Hour each afternoon with our music friends. When the encampment actually started we attend most of the events. http://www.deathvalley49ers.org/encampment_events.htm . We had a wonderful two weeks rekindeling friendships, making new friends, enjoying the entertainment and activities. We hope to attend again next year.

When we got back to North Ranch we started preparing for Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving Dinner at North Ranch. About 200 residents attended. Wonderful food we shared with our North Ranch family. Dan and Carylie arrived that night with Trevor, Tyler, Colton, and Clancy. We bedded the kids down in our living room. It was wall to wall kids. Dan and Carylie slept in our make-shift bedroom in our shed.

We had a full two days while they were here: ATV Ride on the desert, panned for gold, walk in the park, watching football on TV, eating Thanksgiving Leftovers Pot Luck in the Activities Center, Pancake breakfast at the Activities Center, Gem and Mineral Show in Wickenburg, and a Weiner Roast with music.



We're Back At The Ranch

What another whirlwind month! Before leaving Cedar City, we managed to put in an automaic sprinkling system in the front and back yards, battled with the weeds on the rest of the property, mended a fence, installed a back door to the garage, and made a flying trip to Livingingston, TX to pickup a truck for Dan. Gene and Penny were selling theirs and Dan needed another truck. His had over 200,000 miles on his. Anyway, as soon as we recovered from the 5 day trip, we moved on to North Ranch.

When we arrived we found our frends BJ and Charles already here. Graceann and Charlie came in several days later. Arlo and Polly got back from their trip to Main sometime in August. Betty is back safe and sound from Maryland. John and Willa May are back from Washington.
Bob and Julie moved to Oregon. Their house is still for sale. The neighborhood is about full for the season.

We have been really busy since we got back: ice-cream socials, playing music, line-dancing, sharing meals with friends, visiting the dog park, going for the gold, a trip out to Stanton, painting in oils with BJ, Willard back to his jigsaw puzzles, gardening, adding on to our fence, making our yearly Dr. visits in Sun City, shopping in Prescot, and joining friends at Rumors in Yarnell to celebrate October Fest and to listen to Paul play German music on his accordian. And  we've enjoyed some great Happy Hours with friends. Things are back to normal at North Ranch.

We moved on to Southern Utah

We are now at our son's house in Southern Utah. We've been helping him with some much needed yard work. Now I remember why we sold our house to become fulltimers on the road. I am so tired. The good thing is that I lost 5 pounds during the past week. We did go to see a play the other night with Lisa and Dan.

The other day Willard came in holding his head in his bloody hands. He had hit his head on the bedroom slide. I got the bleeding stopped and we decided to go to the emergency room. It's a good thing because he had to have 4 staples put in. Now we have to stay until the staples can come out which is sometime next week. Also, we have to wait until our mail catches up with us before moving on to North Ranch.

We are now at Joey's and Beth's in Ogden, UT

We arrived safely at Joey and Beth's in Ogden, UT. I love the dry mountain air. It was great to see the fam again. I can't believe that the last time we were here was last November at Melissa and Brandon's wedding. Everyone is very busy these days, so we usually don't see them much while we're here. We did manage to find time to all go out to eat at The Texas Roadhouse one night. We are now waiting for our mail to catch up with us. In the meantime Jason and Sara scrubbed down our roof and waxed the coach. We will be moving on to Charlie's in Sunset, UT to have our airconditioner serviced, then on to Freightliner in Magna, UT to have our engine serviced. Then we will head for Cedar City, UT. All is well...........

Movin' On.......

Our stay in Spring Grove, Minnesota seems so long ago, yet it has been only two weeks since we were touring the beautiful Amish Country. A group of Amish moved into the area in the early 70's. They have established homesteads on about 40 acres of land. Other farmers have large corn and soybean fields covering the rolling hills. On our Sunday drive we passed a number of Amish families in their black horse-drawn buggys on their way home from Church held in one of the neighbor's homes. They spend most of their day going to Church and returning home for the homesteads are far apart.

One of the most interesting places we visited in the area was Slim's Woodshed in Harmony. Slim took us on a tour of (as he claims) the largest woodcarving Museum in the USA. His collection was over-whelming. It's a "must stop" if you're in the area.

We left Spring Grove early one morning and headed for Sioux Falls, SD to renew our driver's license. Mary and Tom live in Wotherington, Minnesota and drove in to visit us one afternoon. We finally met Tom. Mary is one of our dear Norwood friends whom we haven't seen in years. It was great catching up on her children, grandchildren, and Norwood friends. We had a picnic lunch and Tom wanted to listen to some of our music. After we played a couple of songs our rude RV neighbor decided to mow his lawn. We couldn't compete with the noise, so we put away the guitars and called it an afternoon.

The next day we headed for Sturgis, SD. It was a long day because all the RV parks were full of motorcyclists for 50 miles on either side of the biker's meca. We had to spend the night in a truck stop in Wyoming. The next night we stayed in an RV park in Montana. A group of bikers from Amboy, WA along with their motorhome pulled up beside us. We had such a good time getting to know them.  We even ended up playing our music for them. They said they loved it. It was a lot of fun.

We left the next morning and headed for Helena, MT to visit with Bill and Karen (some of our Stanton friends). Larry and Sue (Stanton friends) were there also. It was great to touch base with them all. The next morning we moved on to Missoula, Mt to visit with my brother, Charlie. We've had a wonderful time sharing meals, relaxing in the hot tub, having breakfast with Brandy and Alicia, shopping, attending the fair, and golfing. It's been a busy week, but it's time to move on.

Our Stay in Iron Mountain and Beyond

We moved our home to Iron Mountain, Michigan. What was so weird is that in the rig behind us was Janice & Dean (from Alabama) who started fulltiming when we did. We haven't seen them in about 4 years and had no idea we were in the same area, much less the same park. Also Lila and Steve (friends from North Ranch) were there. Amazing! We did lunch at a Chinese Buffet and had Happy Hour at 4. It was fun sharing experiences. You just never know what'll happen next.

We only stayed at Iron Mountain two days before hitching up and moving to Spring Grove, Minnesota, leaving our friends behind.  We finally got an appointment with a dermatologist in La Cross, Wisconson about 25 miles away. So we will be here about a week. The area is rolling farmland with beautiful manicured farms. Many are Amish homesteads. Corn seems to be the main crop. No fast food in any of the towns in this area. Oh my.....

This weekend the RV park is hosting Family Olympics, so the park is full with families. Kids of all ages and dogs of all sizes are everywhere. The pool is full from morning to night, kickball, minature golf, bingo, and horseshoes are just some of the daytime activities.  The aroma of smoke fills the air, as the sun sets in the west and campfires are lit.  It all brings back memories of our tent camping days when our children and/or grandchildren were young. What fun we used to have together. Now they are all grown up and we find ourselves on the edge of all the activity.

Tahquamenon Falls

While at Newberry we visited Tahquamenon Falls with a drop of 48 feet. It is famed in Longfellow's poem, "The Song of Hiawatha." The gold and russet color in the water is tannic acid from the decomposition of the vegetation. It was a nice walk to the falls. We went early in the morning before it got too hot.

Tahquamenon Falls

Whitefish Point

It's hard to imagine this calm sea is a graveyard for hundreds of ships. Go to http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/  to find out all about it. It was one of the most interesting places we've visited, I guess because we didn't know very much about it in the first place. Mark encouraged us to visit it and we did. It was a good day visit. (I finally remembered my camera).

Across the Mackinac Bridge and on to the Soo Locks

We crossed the Mackinac Bridge. It was five miles long. It connects the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan. We've been on longer and higher bridges. The history is what was interesting. Read about it at  http://www.mackinacbridge.org/historical-construction-album-31/

Later we visited the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. More than 11,000 vessels of varying size pass through these locks every year. Most cargo in the ships are either iron ore, coal, grain, or stone. The boat we watched go through was carrying dried beets for cattle feed. The boats and ships pass through the locks between Lake Huron to Lake Superior. Very interesting. For more pictures go to link below:







http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1T4TSHB_enUS240US241&q=soo+locks+michigan&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=U05OTKXqDpKosQPc5anSDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=7&ved=0CEYQsAQwBg

We parked at RV Park East in Kincheloe, MI about 12 miles south of Sault Ste. Marie. It was part of a military air base active in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. Across the highway the buildings were converted to house prisoners. We met several couples that were there for a class reunion. They were both stationed at the air base years ago. They shared many of their memories here. You meet the nicest people in RV parks.

Our Visit to Mackinac Island

We road the Star Line ferry over to Mackinac Island yesterday. It was first a summer fishing camp of the Great Lakes American Indians. . In 1671 Father Jacques Marquette established a mission to the Huron Indians on the island. During the American Revolution a fort (Fort Mackinac) was built in 1780 by the British. It became US territory after the American victory. By the 1820's the fur trade was florishing there, afterwhich it was adapted to commercial fishing. It then became America's second national park, established just three years after Yellowstone. Since then, the Federal Government transfered the national park and fort to the state. Now it is a popular Resort. There are no vehicles (except for a fire truck and police car). There are bicycles and carriages, horses, horse manure, and people everywhere you look. It wasn't anything like I expected. The movie "Somewhere In Time" was filmed at the Grand Hotel, but there is a $10 charge to walk around the hotel. We didn't visit the hotel. To visit the Carriage House was free. We didn't do that either. We didn't have the energy to ride a bike or walk back up the hill to the hotel after our tour. We only saw one person in period clothing. She was the welcome committee at the fort. We road a horse drawn carriage and the guide gave us a history of the island. That part was interesting. We did find out the the island is noted for it's Fudge. And they have a Lilac Festival in the Spring. I'll bet it's a beautiful time of the year. It was an interesting morning, but I don't think I'd go again. It has become a real tourist trap. If you are a bicyclist or hiker you'd probably love it. We are neither these days.
http://www.mackinacisland.org/  Today we just rested and planned our trip on the UP. We'll move out of here in the morning. Crossing the Mackinac Bridge should be interesting.