Tuesday, September 23, 2014

What's Next?




Not long after my last post we had the pleasure of meeting with our friends, Gary and Karen at their home in Cedaredge, CO. 
 
We had some great games of Hand and Foot, lively and uplifting conversations and were treated to the beautiful mountain sceneries of Ouray and Telluride, CO. I’ve not been in the habit of carrying my camera with me lately so most of the photos are on my tablet, for which I have no clue how to get them onto my computer. Trevor did forward the above photo from his phone, for which I am very grateful.
Gary is a skilled wood craftsman and he, along with Karen’s help, completed some home décor projects for me that I’m very excited about.
RV’s are not known for their great amount of counter space, so there isn’t a lot of room for those rectangular shaped Kleenex boxes. So some of us buy the cube shaped ones, right? Have you ever noticed that you get half the amount of tissues in the cubes than you do in the rectangular boxes for the same price? Being the cheapskate that I am, I don’t want to pay the same amount for less. So I asked Gary to build me a cube shaped box with a bottom in it that I can easily open to insert Kleenex from the rectangular boxes into it.





The new box he made us is awesome! We’ve only just started to finish it with a weathered gray stain to match the décor in our rig, but plan to paint some color onto it as well. But it works great and saves us a lot of money!

Next, I asked Gary to make me a surfboard with what looks like a shark bite taken out of it. Kind of like those “Land Shark” signs you see in bars and restaurants. We were planning to place it on the wall between the passenger seat and the loveseat, screw a couple of hooks into it and use it for a coat rack. After our niece finished it with paint for us, Trevor jokingly held it up to the ceiling in the kitchen area. After several people concurred that it needed to go there, Trevor screwed it into the ceiling where it will remain until the last days of earth or the RV, whichever comes first. He just screwed it in last night and is still working on filling in the screw holes. But now I still need some coat hooks! Gary….

The weather was becoming a little nasty while in Cedaredge, so we left earlier than planned. The mountain passes we needed to get through were closed due to snow, so we spent a few days in Glenwood Springs, CO. I’m not a great fan of snow, but it was so beautiful there in the mountains, we just took some time to relax and enjoy where we were until the passes opened up.
 
While there, we met a wonderful couple a few sites over from us, thus having a mini rally with this couple who happen to be members of rvforum.net that we frequently use for important information and help concerning RVs and for social purposes as well. 

Our next stop was Golden, CO where we had a great visit with family members we don’t often get to see and miss terribly.

There was still a bit of snow on the way to Golden and I wondered how many inches we were in for. 


The nice thing was with our new remodel in the beach theme, no matter where we are or what’s going on outside, I’m always in my happy place!


The summer was busy in Minnesota as always, especially this year with lots of celebrations. First was the baby shower for my daughter who was having her third child 12 years after her last one. Knowing the baby was a boy, we found this recipe online for blue punch. It turned out pretty cute and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.

The following day, Trevor and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary by renewing our vows. When we were first married we weren’t living out our faith in Jesus Christ. We were married by a judge using New Age vows and ever since the day the Lord gave us the faith to believe in His Name and in His shed blood for the cleansing of our sins we’ve wanted to renew our vows in His presence and amongst our family.

If we had our way, we would have flown everyone down south for a celebration on the beach near beautiful Gulf waters. Instead, we bought a beach themed backdrop off ebay and faked it. I know it’s cheap and sappy, but we had fun and enjoyed being with our family!
The following week we had a family gathering with Trevor’s side of the family at the KOA in Maple Grove, MN. It was great getting together with relatives we rarely get to see outside of weddings, graduations and funerals.


For me, time has a way of all running together when there’s so much going on. Somewhere in there we squeezed in a visit with our friends, Jack and Mary and Trevor’s big brother


 and his wife at their home in Wisconsin.
We get a lot of comments that the RV remodel looks way better in person than it does in photos, so Mary took some photos with her wide angle lens, our thoughts being maybe it’d be better if the whole thing could be seen at once. 





I’ve seen wide angle shots like this on other RVs and always thought they were airstream photos or something. Now I’ll know better what I’m looking at when I enjoy viewing what fellow RVers have done to their rigs. 
 
Before leaving MN we took my parents and their dog Rookie, on a trip to one of our favorite places, Anacortes, WA. 

We so wanted to share all the things we love about Anacortes with them. We talked it up for a long time before take- off and could hardly wait to get them out there to enjoy it with us. Unfortunately, it was pretty foggy almost the whole time we were there!

 The big bummer about that was the things we most enjoy there are the sights! Which were a little difficult to see! My mom did get a small glimpse of Mt. Rainier before we left but my dad never saw it. I was especially grateful they got to see the islands from the top of Mt. Erie before we left, but it was still too foggy to see Mt. Rainier from there.




Still, there were other sights to see along the way and we did get to enjoy a lot of other things.

On the way home, our grandson was born just as we were pulling into town. Great timing! It was my dad’s birthday, plus we got to see him the day he was born! My dad thought they should name the baby after him since they shared a birthday after all, but they didn’t bite!

A couple of years ago, I began to visit climbing forums in order to get information for a work of fiction I’ve been working on. On one of the forums I saw that another author had been on the forum asking for help and a climber named Brad had offered her his expertise. I contacted him as well and he so graciously answered any questions I had and he and his wife even met with us in person to help me with technical issues such as knots, etc.
Brad, a deacon in his church in Alabama, asked if we’d like to attend with them one Sunday and say a couple of words about who we are and what we were doing in town. When Trevor told him he was going to say that I met their deacon online and we came out here to meet, we didn’t have to get up and speak in front of the church!!!...lol
The four of us have become good friends and just got back from enjoying time together at Gulf Shores State Park in Lower Alabama.


If you’re an RVer looking for a great place to stay, check this out. Their sites are cheap and the park is filled with all kinds of great things! It’s also a great place for families to stay. They have lots of cabins and some cottages right on a lake there. We rented a cottage that had plenty of room for the 4 of us and more. 

So what’s next?
We’ll let you know when we figure that out…lol!
Take care, you guys!
We love you!
Love, Trevor & Roni




4 comments:

  1. We have a 2010 Element, 2-wheel drive automatic. Would really like to know how towing your 2011 went? Thank You, robinnoland@gmail.com :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Towing has gone great. We've followed the instructions for towing a Honda CRV of the same year and haven't had any problems at all.

    ReplyDelete