Paws and Friends

On this "special" day we wanted to do a Geocache, and found a nice one just across the road from North Ranch, BOF Anniversary Cache . Geocaching.com has a special souvenir for any geocachers who attend a special 12-12-12 or log a "Found it" on this day. Here is that souvenir. For those of you not familiar with Geocaching, it is a free, real-world outdoor treasure hunt. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using a GPS or smartphone,then record their experiences on line. Be sure to checkout the link for geocaching , view the short video, and sign up! It is free! And for each state where you log a cache, you receive a souvenir of that state on your Geocache profile! We currently have 19 states "logged." Working to get more! In addition, we have the special Leap Year Souvenir. These special events, and other timely information is listed in the geocache weekly update. Be sure to sign up for it! Trackables add an additional layer of

We picked up our coach Friday evening, about 5:30, from Lazydays. The awning mount had two butterfly screws to secure it to the side of the coach. Should this issue repeat, it is likely that the side of the motor home will be pulled out! Not likely, we are told, and we have our fingers crossed! The rear leveling systems has two new jacks, which are working beautifully! No longer does it take 45 minutes to get the jacks up before departure! One item, however, was not complete. The tech was there chatting with us, and agreed to come to our site Saturday morning to complete that task. He showed up Saturday morning, just after 8:00 AM, and was finished in 10 minutes! Are we happy with Lazydays?!  You bet! Since it was a Saturday, we traveled back to North Ranch the same way. We parked by the Club House, unhooked the jeep, and drove down to play musical chairs with the Blue Buggy we had parked where we park the coach. After completing that task, and chatting with neighbors, we went back t

 The last full day for us in Tucson, the day our coach went in for completion of warranty update work, we drove west to Kitt Peak National Observatory, a place Lindy has wanted to see for many years! The weather was beautiful, just a tad chilly at the top (6,875'), and all of the Roving Riders enjoyed it! Of course Lindy now wants to experience the Nightly Observing Program...so we shall return! We were amazed at the list of Universities involved in the program, the number of telescopes, the two dormitories for staff, the entire layout of the facility! Dogs on leashes are welcome, we picked up the walking Tour Map from the Visitor's Center and explored much of the complex, all except the Mayall 4m Telescope. We had parked by picnic tables where we grabbed a snack to sustain us before we continued the walking tour. We are now planning on our NEXT experience at the Kitt Peak National Observatory--participation in the Nightly Observing Program! Radio Tel

It is time! After a month or so of sitting, it is time to "exercise" the motor home and generator, and we prefer to do the exercising in a real way...moving on down the road! So, we called Lazydays RV in Tucson to schedule warranty followup repairs; and Freightliner in Tucson for service on our coach. Good reasons, don't your think, for a road trip?! After our experiences in April  (see earlier post) at both locations, we are happy to return to have quality work done on our coach. Here we are at the corner of Peaceful and Lazydays, enjoying Tucson! We figured about 2 weeks would be good for completing the work, and allowing us time to enjoy and explore! We left North Ranch Monday November  5, with appointments Wednesday the 7th at Lazydays and Thursday the 8th at Freightliner. Here is our route: View Larger Map All is going well on both fronts: Freightliner completed their work, and Lazydays Service has ordered what is needed to complete the warranty work--we a

October 23 we loaded up the jeep with dogs and goodies, and headed out north east on Arizona 89 to hunt for fall leaves. Here is our route: View Larger Map Just above Jerome. We traveled 250 + miles, but thoroughly enjoyed the journey! Of course the dogs were very happy! We had packed a lunch, fried chicken from Safeway in Wickenburg, and ate it at tables outside the Safeway in Cottonwood! We stopped at a picnic area in Oak Creek Canyon and walked around a bit, enjoying the trees and the few trees showing colors. By that time, it was a tad chilly, and we were glad we had found the outside patio tables at Safeway. We enjoyed visiting Jerome again, although it has been many years from that first visit! Sedona has grown much since our visits of several years ago! We passed through, remembering and cherishing our memories of earlier visits when it was not as "popular." We enjoyed the drive up to the top of the ridge, where we turned around to retrace much of our route.

We are enjoying our new UTV at North Ranch! We travel through the back gate of the development, designed for this purpose, out into BLM land and can choose any number of roads to explore. So far, we have 14 hours on the buggy. We have gone out several times, usually in the early morning to enjoy the coolness. We take the dogs, using special harnesses so they can be strapped in their seat with the seat belts. Rupert doesn't like it much when branches hit the buggy, so we try to avoid those as much as possible. Nothing bothers Bitty! Except, NOT being able to go! She knows "let's go in the jeep!" so we use the jeep for both the jeep and the buggy. She knows, when the she has her harness on, that "jeep" means the buggy! Here are some pictures.... Our first "stopping" place to give the dogs a chance to run around in the open.  Bitty all set to go! Rupert being buckled in.  It does get dusty! We have washed the buggy once--remov

Our route: View Larger Map We left Las Vegas Motorcoach Resort early for a couple of reasons:  1) it was hot so good time to "beat the heat" and 2) we were meeting Lindy's cousin and her husband at the Petro truck stop east of Kingman for a "brunch!" We pulled in to the Petro Truck Stop and there was Gay and Richard, sitting on a bench waiting for us! What fun we had eating and chatting! After a couple of hours, we each went our way:  Gay and Richard north west to Las Vegas and Roving Riders south east to Roving Riders Roost! After filling up the coach with propane (first time since last fall!) we drove on to Wind Spirit Lane and prepared for "the parking" which was rather seamless! With Mike's excellent direction, we had the coach parked, leveled, and plugged in by 3:30! We have been busy since then! Lindy dug through her clothing bins to find "just the right stuff" for her 45th college reunion in Aurora, Illinois, October 3-9.

We are HERE! Here is our route: View Larger Map We talked about cutting straight down the eastern side of Nevada. We continue on this leg as well. However, if you expand the map, you'll see that we did indeed take some turns...NOT completely straight, but almost! We climbed some initially coming out of Ely, then it seemed to be mostly downhill as we went from over 6000 feet to the 2300 feet of Las Vegas. (An aside:  North Ranch is 2700 feet--so we are in "our zone!") We noticed the de-compression of our water bottles, and other liquids stored! An opposite   phenomena to leaving lower elevations climbing into higher ones....We traveled 254 miles, departing at 8, earlier than our usual 9 to avoid heat and traffic. We were in our site and set up by 2. A good travel day! Site at Las Vegas Motorcoach Resort What a beautiful park we are in! It's ratings are straight 10's in Good Sam's Trailer Life Directory. There are 5 swimming pools:  4 smaller ones arou

We departed Jackpot too early! Still chilly, and we wore our sweatshirts and ran the heater in the coach for a couple of hours! And, we departed at 7:50 AM Pacific Mountain Time!  (Technically, Jackpot is on Mountain Time, but we refused to change our watches!) There was so much haze (from smoke) that it blocked the warm sun rays! But, after a couple of hours, the heat was switched to air and the sweatshirts discarded! Such great country! With such an early start (for us!), we were set up in our spot at the Ely KOA by 1 PM PDT.  It was warm, 81 degrees, but as evening settles in, we have the windows open with cool air passing through. Low tonight will be mid 40's....!  Ely is usually cool, but especially in September!  Here is our route....almost a straight shot down! All you could see was the road stretching straight ahead of you--disappearing over a hill, and occasionally turning slightly...Well, we did have to stop and turn right to continue on US 93...! But we didn'

We sadly departed Valley Camp, North Bend, WA Monday, September 17. Sadly, because the weather is terrific! Cool, crisp mornings, beautiful sun-shiny days with temps in the low 70's. Leaves falling....! Only problem is the dew in the mornings! Even with Red Flag warnings for the dryness...dew still "falls" nightly! We suppose this weather is an excellent trade-off for the wet spring we experienced last year--and that we may well experience next spring! Oh well! Ambassador RV Resort, Caldwell ID We drove east over the pass, down into Hermiston, OR where we saw fields of watermelon; that delicious seedless watermelon! We wanted to stop the coach and walk over and pick up a few. We did not. Instead, we checked into Pioneer RV Park, a nice park for an overnight stop with a good pull through so we did not have to unhook the jeep. Our trip Monday was 218 miles...not bad for a day's trip, especially with all freeway driving. Tuesday we continued with all freeway dr

We celebrated Wyoming! Mountains and coolness--well, coolness when we reached western Wyoming! It was still hot in Rawlins. We experienced a brown-out in the campground as it was full, and all were running A/Cs. We did explore the Territorial Prison in town where dogs were welcome. Bitty let it be known to the tour guide to move it along, when things got slow! We enjoyed the visit and bit of Wyoming history. Exercise Yard The "jewel" was Fort Bridger RV Camp, in Fort Bridger, WY, just east of Evanston. It is a Good Sam Park, with long grassy sites adjacent to Fort Bridger State Park . We stayed one night, but were there early enough to walk to the State Park which we thoroughly enjoyed (more of that history!).  We have "marked" this location as a "return" site! The campground is clean and neat, inexpensive, 3 miles from the freeway, with lots to explore in that area! Fort Bridger RV Park Fort Bridger State Park Mountain Man Jim Bridger!

We left Elkhart, IN, July 19, Thursday morning, through a downpour, the first rain they had received since March 3, for Joliet, IL. While in Joliet, we met an old college friend of Lindy's, Ruth Hunt Mendius and her husband Larry. We had a great time chatting in the motor home and continuing the chatter over lunch! From Joliet we traveled through Iowa, spending one night in North Liberty then across the state the next day to Shelby, IA. Monday, July 23 we traveled 99 miles to Pender, NE, to the Blue Ox Campground (VERY nice! and free to Blue Ox owners and Escapees!)  on site at the Blue Ox factory and service center. We bought our tow bar for the jeep in February 2008, and we had never had it serviced. We had an appointment, and about an hour before, a young gentleman knocked on our door, picked up the tow bar, and delivered it for its servicing. About 2 1/2 hours later he returned with the tow bar, helped us get it back in the hitch on the coach, and explained a li