Goodbye 2020, Don't Let the Door Hit You On The Way Out...

 I don’t think there are very many people who are sad to see 2020 end.  Will 2021 be better? I don’t want to jinx it by saying it couldn’t be any worse. The shirt I ordered for Christmas summed it up I think…

In fact, we all ordered shirts for Christmas, and in true 2020 fashion, only two of them arrived BEFORE Christmas! Ugh.

I am getting ahead of myself though.

Soon after we arrived home in early October, our daughter Jess came over from L.A. with a few of her (quarantined) friends.

 

It was a great weekend, swimming in the pool, and spending time on the lake with the jet ski and boat.

After what seemed like a very short time, they were on their way back to L.A. and we hunkered down and started working on projects.

The weirdest one was probably us trying to convince our palm tree that it does NOT want to grow straight up.  It grew a lot over the summer, putting it a little too close to the wires above it. It took a few hours, but hopefully the wedge we created will keep it safe from the wires.

The most fun project was picking up and outfitting our NEW truck.  Over a year after we ordered it, it finally arrived.

If we thought our F450 was a beast, this F350 is beyond amazing. The power, and features are incredible.

Part of the delay was due to the fact that this is the ONLY color we wanted. Even when we knew it would be a long wait for it, there was nothing else we would be happy with, so we waited…and waited.  Covid shutdowns also played a big role, but we finally got it!

It wasn’t long before our first winter guests arrived.  Liz and Randy recently bought a Mobile Suite, the same 5th wheel brand that Paul and I, and Julie and Mike have. Can’t wait to line them all up!

We anticipate many joint projects this winter, as we work to get our rigs modified to our liking.

In mid November,  “2020” type issues once again reared their ugly head, and we had to scrap our Thanksgiving plans.  Instead, Paul and I had to get to Boston to deal with an urgent family situation.

There was no way we were going to fly, so we put the camper on the new truck and drove. After doing what we could, we turned around and came home.

We were happy to get out of MA, with temps dipping into the low 20s at night.  The camper handled it perfectly though- a nice perk. Driving was an all day affair, every day, with us usually  arriving in campgrounds just in time for sunset.

Traditionally, in early December we head to the lake to watch the Christmas Boat Parade. Dinner is usually hot dogs cooked on the propane fire pit, with cole slaw and potato salad.

 

This year was no different, since its easy to distance from other groups.

Before we knew it, Mike and Julie arrived for the holidays and the 6 amigos were together again.

They brought with them some new bling for the PPP- customized aprons and dish towels!

When the weather turned awesome one day, we put all the projects on hold and headed for the lake.

We stayed on the water just long enough to see London Bridge and the English Village all lit up for Christmas.

A few days before the holiday, our daughter Jess arrived from L.A. She is always a welcome addition to our party.

This year was a mix of traditions and new additions to the holidays at the PPP.  Our group was smaller than usual, but we still had a great time.

The Official Weighing of the Carrot Cake still took place…..as did the Yankee Swap.

Of course one of my favorite types of pictures of the PPP is one where someone is cooking (usually not me, haha) and the rest are supervising from the other side of the counter.  This year was no different in that regard.

New for this year was a zoom party with my family back in MA- that was a welcome addition to the day!

We also attended a concert “2020” style- by streaming it on our TV.

Just before Jess headed back to CA, she and I hiked one of my favorite hikes in the area- Lizard Peek.  I try and hike this once or twice a week in the winter.

Anyway, here’s to 2021- May it indeed be better than 2020!

The Rest of the Way Home (10-04-20)

It’s hard to believe the summer is over, and we spent the last few weeks making our way home. We had to take our planned stop in the Black Hills off the agenda, since we got delayed by almost a week with the truck issues.

The change allowed us to take 5 days and drove south to Abilene TX, where our friends Wil and Gayle recently relocated. After a fun filled two days with them we were on the move again.

Our next stop was a two day drive- El Paso TX to see Paul’s mom.  She is doing great, although like all of us, she is struggling a bit with the isolation these last few months. She is still working on her 90th birthday gift…a puzzle of her kids and grandkids.

It’s still quite hot in Havasu, so we didn’t want to rush home quite yet.  I had doctor appointments in Phoenix, so we worked our way there and found a place to stay that has a decent pool.

We sat down with a map and calendar to see if our thought about going to the north rim of the Grand Canyon was actually a good idea. We decided it wasn’t. Frustrating that we weren’t able to make it there this year, but I guess it gives us something to plan for next year.

We chose, instead, to drive to Williams AZ and spend a couple of days hanging out there.  Its only 2.5 hours from the house, but its at higher elevation, so its cooler. 

 

In theory we were going to do some hiking- in reality we went for a “Scenic Drive” – or, more accurately, a “bone jarring, teeth rattling drive down a dirt ‘road’”. 

 The views where we stopped to have lunch were pretty good but not worth the trip there and back. 

We took advantage of the great weather to eat out at a restaurant with outdoor seating and live music.

Now that we are home, we will spend a few days moving back into the house, and getting ready for a visit from our daughter and her friends in a week or so.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

 We had debated for quite a while whether the trip over to North Dakota was worth a 3 day drive. In the end, we decided it was, because we’d never spent any time there, and although there doesn’t seem to be all that much of interest, there IS a national Park.

Unfortunately the drive there was not uneventful. Driving down the highway we heard a loud popping noise. We both froze, listening and watching, to figure out what happened.  The truck was still running and the trailer was still where it should be.  About 5 seconds later, Paul- I am always thankful that he is so technically inclined- said “ we blew a hose”.  There was no shoulder and nowhere to pull off.  I looked on google map and found a pull off 4 miles ahead.  Luckily it wasn’t so serious that we couldn’t make it that far.

Sure enough, the cold side Turbo something or other hose was not only  disconnected, it was broken. A bunch of duct tape later, we were able to continue on our way to the nearest town with a decent RV park. Finding a new hose was not a piece of cake. There are 15,000 of them on back order with Ford. NO one had one. Realizing it wasn’t going to be a quick fix, I canceled our reservations for the next few days.  

We (he) finally found one, but when we called to see if they would overnight it, it turns out they didn’t actually have one- but he actually emailed us later in the day to tell us that his competitor does have one in stock. We didn’t care for the price and it wasn’t the exact hose we needed but it took 3 days just to find that one, so we had them overnight it. We still ended up spending 5 days in the little town of Glasgow Montana dealing with all this.

The upside for me was that the RV park was part of a motel, and there was an indoor pool, suitable for swimming laps, hooray!

Because the truck was still usable, we were able to do some food shopping and even went out to eat one night. Once we knew the part was on its way, we went off exploring for a day. The only thing of interest that we could find was the Fort Peck Dam. 

As seems to be the case everywhere we go this summer, Lewis and Clark came thru this area on their famous expedition. At that time, this was just the Missouri River, but the dam was built in the 1930s, creating Fort Peck Lake, the 5th largest man made lake in the U.S.

Once the new hose was installed, we were on our way to North Dakota. 

Theodore Roosevelt National Park has 3 sections- we explored two of them. This park was created in the 1940s to commemorate all that Teddy Roosevelt did for conservationism. In fact, while president, he was responsible for creating The U.S. Forest Service, 18 national monuments, 5 national parks, and 150 national forests- 230 million acres of land.

These badlands were where Roosevelt had his ranch- and the peacefulness he felt here is partly what inspired him to conserve so many wild areas for future generations.

The south section of the park was full of wildlife- from adorable prairie dogs to feral horses. 

If you’ve never seen what a prairie dog town looks like- this is it.  

A field of holes. Usually prairie dogs are standing watch just outside their homes, but there are not many predators here, so they seem more comfortable without the lookouts.

Bison are prevalent here too, as we discovered when we got stuck in a bison jam. 

It doesn’t bother me when people stop briefly in the middle of the road to take a picture, but it annoys me when they essentially park there for 10 minutes, blocking traffic.

At least I got a couple of decent pictures myself.

The north section is an hour away and deserved an entire day of exploring. Although there is wildlife here as well, we were focused on the hiking.

We chose a 4 mile trail – Caprock Coulee- which turned out to be an excellent choice.  

The first half mile was an interpretive nature trail. There are two types of erosion at work in the badlands- rivulet erosion, which you can see-the channels in the stone are created by rain. The other is differential erosion. The under layer erodes away but the rock that creates the cap is harder and doesn’t erode as fast.

The rest of the trail was just fun- with great views and some interesting rock formations to hike on.