When we were in Spokane this past summer, we went by the DMV to get our fifth wheel licensed, since the South Dakota license had expired in May.  We found out that, because the fifth wheel is less than 7 years old, we'd have to pay the difference between the taxes we paid in South Dakota (3%) and what Washington State charges (well over 8%), albeit on a reduced value...which would have ended up costing us over $4,000!!!  Since the fifth wheel wasn't on the road, we decided to forget about registering it in Washington and register it in Arizona, instead (where it's been parked since early 2010).  Arizona has expensive auto registration fees, but the $400+ it cost us to register it here is certainly a far cry from what we'd have paid in Washington!  We'll wait two more years and then register the fifth wheel in Washington, which, at that time, should cost us only around $50, perhaps less.

Bill and Janet Adams came out on the 22nd to install the Winegard Trav'ler satellite TV dish on the roof of our fifth wheel.  I had no idea how long it would take them, but figured they'd be here most of the day.  Well, they arrived at around 10 AM, had the dome off and the Trav'ler installed and up and running by lunch time!  Janet was the one who did all the installation work...Bill acted as the "gofer" getting supplies up to Janet.  Me?  You wouldn't find me anywhere near the roof, let alone on top of it walking around!

The truck box I'd ordered came and Earl installed it.  We then went through all the stuff in the shed deciding what to throw away, what to keep, and what to take with us.  Earl got the two Honda generators that had been sitting in the shed for two summers started and we'll take one with us.  We have decided to pay for one more year here and will probably put the shed up for sale when we return.

It's been a long time since I've make any posts to this blog...guess I should do so!

Nothing really exciting has been happening...mostly just the usual of shopping, visiting friends, taking the dogs for a walk, and working on genealogy.  In fact, genealogy seems to have taken up much of my time!

As I mentioned in my previous post, we're going to have a Winegard Trav'ler satellite TV dish installed on our fifth wheel.  While we do have a dish on a tripod sitting beside the rig (one that Satellite Advantage in Quartzsite set up last year), we don't want to fool with having to manually tune in all three satellites for Dish Network...too much of a hassle when we're moving every day or two. 

We went by Satellite Advantage to find out how much they'd charge for coming out and installing the dish...they wanted $1,700+, but would waive the sales tax (around 10%) if we paid cash.  So we opened up a savings account at the bank in Quartzsite so we'd have the cash handy to pay them.  In the meantime, I contacted a fellow Escapee who installs both satellite TV and satellite Internet dishes to see if he was going to be in Quartzsite sometime during the winter and, if so, how much he charged.  Turns out he was a couple hundred dollars less expensive...and we'll have the added benefit of giving the work to an Escapee.  He'll be in Quartzsite during the Sports, Vacation, and RV Show which starts next Saturday, the 21st, so we should have our new dish installed sometime within the next couple of weeks.

Blaze had his first birthday on December 23.  Here's a recent picture of him:

And one of Gracie:

We had a quiet Thanksgiving and Christmas...turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, ham for Christmas dinner.  We don't buy presents any more for each other at Christmas...there's nothing we really need, and there's really no place to shop for stuff around here without going 100+ miles into Phoenix, or almost the same distance into Yuma.

Ed and Jan, the Escapees who purchased our camper back in early November shortly after we'd put it up for sale (see the previous November 10, 2011 post), arrived on January 3 to pick up the camper.  They arrived after dark, so we just quickly went over a few systems, had a drink with them, and let them unload what they'd need for the night and the next morning.

On Wednesday morning, we went through all the systems with them, took the camper off our truck and loaded it onto theirs.  They spent the rest of the day loading all the stuff they'd brought with them into the camper, taking a break for lunch at Dos Amigos where we all had their Wednesday special of fish tacos...yum!  We signed over the Title to them, had Happy Hour, and then they took off to boondock somewhere out in the desert.  We'll miss having the camper...it made it really handy for a quick overnight trip into Phoenix for a Costco run and for getting into all those little places that we won't be able to get into with the larger fifth wheel...but, as I mentioned previously, we'll have much more room for the dogs (and us) traveling in the fifth wheel.

My birthday was the fifth of this month so Earl and I went to Silly Al's in Quartzsite to celebrate.  Silly Al's probably has some of the best pizza we've ever had...while we've run into some great pizza, I don't think any has been any better than Silly Al's pizza!

Earl put the fifth wheel hitch back in the truck.  Since the tail gate and the bed cover are in Spokane, we ordered a box to put in the bed and a "V" shaped tail gate...we found one for something like $50 on the Internet (compared to several hundred dollars for the louvered metal ones).  The tail gate came, Earl put it together and installed it on the truck.  I wasn't sure what it would look like, but we figured if we didn't like it, we weren't out much money, but I must say it looks pretty good on the truck!

The bed box hasn't come yet, but we're going to go through the stuff in the shed deciding what we can get rid of and what we want to take along with us.  After that exercise, we'll decide whether or not we want to sign up for another year here, or just pay by the month until we leave.  If we decide not to sign up for another year, we'll put the shed up for sale. 

I'd like to leave sometime in March, if possible, since we'd like to take a trip down to Big Bend, stopping in Tucson to visit Blaze's breeder.  Earl says he wants to travel through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska on the way north, but that's right during tornado season, so I'm not sure I want to be in that area during that time of year!

Here are some pictures of the area around the RV park where we stay:

An old, gnarly tree we pass on our morning walks with the dogs.

View from our RV site

Another view from our RV site early in the morning just as the sun came up.

Full moon setting over the mountains early in the morning.

On Thursday, October 20, we left Mesquite and headed for Las Vegas.  Traveling through Las Vegas on the Interstate was worse than traveling through Salt Lake City...and we went through Las Vegas early in the morning!  One thing we noticed:  The drivers in Salt Lake City were much more polite than those in Las Vegas.

Before heading out to Las Vegas Bay Campground in Lake Mead NRA, we stopped in Henderson to shop at Petco (where we bought food and picked up a spare harness for Blaze), Costco, and get fuel for both the truck and car. 

The next day, we were up before the sun, drove into Henderson for breakfast, and then headed south on US-95.  We were originally going to go via US-93 and spend the night at Burro Creek Campground, but being so close to home, we decided to go down US-95, take the bridge across the Colorado River into Parker, and then head east on AZ-72 until we got to the road that goes south to the RV park where we spend the winter.  We were back at the fifth wheel early and spent the rest of the day unloading the camper.

The fifth wheel was none the worse for wear having spent the summer in the heat of Arizona, except...sometime during the day, the hot water faucet blew in the kitchen.  Earl quickly turned off the water, and called a mobile RV repair guy who wouldn't be able to come out until the next day.  Fortunately, I'd already had a chance to take a shower before this happened...Earl had to take a shower in the camper!  

The next day, the guy came out, but he could not repair the faucet (cheap plastic parts...you'd think that for the money we spent for this fifth wheel, the manufacturer would have used high-quality fixtures with brass parts) so he'd have to order a new one; in the meantime, he installed a shut-off on the kitchen line so that we could at least use the bathroom.  Since a new faucet had to be installed, I told the guy to get one that had a pull-out faucet with a spray function, which is what I got...and, instead of hot water and cold water handles, it has a single lever handle.  Really nice! 

While he was out installing the new kitchen faucet, we mentioned that the electric side of the water heater hadn't been working for a couple of years now...since October 2009 when we were staying at Klamath Falls, Oregon Passport America RV Park.  He tested it, and found that it needed a new control board.  After nearly two weeks, the board came in, and this morning he came out to install it.  We can now use the electric to heat our water...yea!

We've decided to put the camper up for sale.  Trying to travel in such a small space with two dogs, particularly one very active Basenji, and having to move their cages twice a day, which included making the dinette into a bed at night and then doing the reverse in the morning, is getting really old.  When we got the camper, we had Maxx.  He was an older dog, didn't need to be in a crate, and slept on a pad underneath the dinette table.  If we just had Gracie, she wouldn't be a problem, either, since she doesn't need a crate and could sleep in bed with us or on a pad underneath the table.  But Blaze is an entirely different story!  Even though he'd be OK with not being in a crate, he'd want to sleep with us...and in a queen size bed, there's just not enough room for two dogs. ;-)

Toward that end, we emptied out the camper and cleaned it.  I took lots of pictures, both of the inside and outside, and created a blog to sell it, http://2009eaglecap950camper.blogspot.com/ .  I then listed it on Craigslist, and advertised it on the Escapees Discussion forum, a couple of camper forums, the IRV2 Classifieds, and posted to the Boomer Bulletin Board (BBB, a Yahoo Group).  We got an inquiring within a couple of days from a Boomer who'd seen my post on the BBB.  After some back and forth emails, they made an offer, which we accepted.  They've made a non-refundable deposit and will pick up the camper in January when they are here for the annual Boomer get together in Quartzsite.

We will go back to pulling the fifth wheel.  It'll give us more room, both for us and the dogs.  The only downside will be that we'll have to pay for storage when we're in Spokane since we won't be able to park the fifth wheel beside the house like we did with the camper.  One thing we're going to do before leaving here in the spring is to have a Winegard Trav'ler for Dish Network installed on the fifth wheel in place of the dome that is currently there.  Last year, we had Satellite Advantage in Quartzsite come out and place a dish on a tripod beside the rig, but we don't want to fool with a portable unit and the headaches it entails, both in setting it up and in trying to get all three satellites tuned in. 

After going through 4 or 5 halters for Blaze, which he ends up chewing in half (and he also chewed the strap that holds him down while traveling), we've finally given up on securing him in the backseat with a seat belt and bought a travel crate to put him in!  For the money we've spent on halters, we could have bought the crate a long time ago!  It came yesterday, so we took the dogs for a ride to try it out.  I thought perhaps Blaze would whine when put in the crate, but he just laid down and slept.  Now we'll just use the halter for walks and take it off when he's put in the travel crate.

Earl and I had a nice relaxing stay at Antelope Valley RV Park in Delta, Utah.  We were close to a gravel road where we could walk the dogs, which made it nice. 

This morning, after it got light (the dogs got us up before 6 AM!), we drove into town to fill the car and truck with fuel and then went to McDonald's for breakfast.  Instead of our usual sausage and egg biscuit, we had one of their breakfast burritos...Earl had the sausage and I had the steak (hamburger, really).  We both agreed that the steak breakfast burrito was the best and it's something we'd order again.

After breakfast, we left Delta and headed south on UT-257, not connecting with I-15 again until we reached Cedar City.  Continuing south on I-15, we entered the Virgin River Canyon which is located on the portion of I-15 that crosses through a small portion of northwestern Arizona.  We've never driven this portion of I-15 before and the scenery was spectacular!  We may have to come this way in the spring just so we can drive through the canyon again!

Tonight we're at the Virgin River Casino which offers free overnight parking for RVs.  While we don't gamble, we usually do partake of one of the restaurants...tonight we ate at the casino's buffet which was offering Mexican and Southwestern food.  The food was pretty darn good.

We left Curlew Campground around 8:00 AM and headed south to the HappiJac factory in Kaysville.  I'd looked up the location on Google Maps, so we knew which exit to take and which direction to go from the off ramp.  However, Google Maps showed the location on the south side of the road, but as we came to the road, a left turn would have put us in a residential neighborhood...this can't be right!  We pulled over while I called the factory to find out their location.  It turned out we should have turned right instead of left.  After turning around and finding the correction road, we still had difficulty finding the place!  The number of the building is on a small concrete sign at one corner by the road which we missed going by the first time...and, instead of a large sign on the building saying "HappiJac," no name appears at all on the building.  It isn't until you get to the front door, which isn't situated on the main road, that you see the name of the company painted on the door.

But we did finally find the place, went inside, and were directed around back where an employee came out to assess the problem with our jack.  He tested the motor...it was OK.  He tested the jack itself (the screw part inside the casing)...it was OK, too.  It turned out that the problem was in the wiring, evidently miswired at the Eagle Cap factory.  Once the guy rewired the jack, it worked perfectly!  And, not only did we not get charged for the work, the guy doing the work gave Earl two bits for his drill so that he can run the jacks up and down quicker than can be done with the remote!

After the jack was repaired, we went in search of a gas station to get fuel for both the car and the truck.  We then had lunch at Marie Callendar and were waited on by a waitress with the reddest hair I've ever seen...probably not her real color, and as I think about it, maybe she'd dyed it for Halloween, since it was on the verge of being orange!

After lunch, we located a PetsMart and bought another harness for Blaze...the third one we've had to buy for him (the latest was bought earlier this month) because he chews through them!  This time, we bought this harness: Reflective Sport Harness.  He should have a much harder time of chewing through this one since it'll be much more difficult to get his mouth around it (crossed fingers)!

The time had now come to drive through the gauntlet that is Salt Lake City!  Actually, driving through the city wasn't too bad...the bad part came south of Salt Lake City when we had to go through miles and miles of construction.  Finally, though, we got to our exit and headed west to Delta and our home park, Antelope Valley RV Park, where we can stay for free up to four weeks each year.  We're only staying a couple of days this time, though.

We left Spokane on Tuesday, October 4 and headed south on US-195 through Lewiston, Idaho where we picked up US-95.  We continued south to Hammer Creek Recreation Area, just south of White Bird, where we spent the night.

After breakfast the next morning, we continued south on US-95, intending to spend the night at Mann Creek Reservoir; however, it was raining most of the day so we figured that the camping area around the reservoir would be nothing but mud, so we continued on to my mother's place south of Nampa.

We spent 11 days visiting with my mother and had a great time!  While there, we visited with a cousin (once removed) who has done a lot of genealogy and had dinner with an aunt and two of her daughters.  We never did make it out to cemeteries in the area, though, to take pictures of relatives' gravestones.  We'll have to do that this coming spring when we visit my mother again.

Sunday morning we headed out and traveled east on I-84, spending last night at the campground at Curlew National Grasslands, north of Snowville, Utah (the campground is actually in Idaho). 

Today we'll continue south on I-84 to Kaysville (north of Salt Lake City) and stop at the HappiJac factory so they can repair or replace one of our jacks which hasn't really worked right since we first got the camper.

August and September

I've been extremely lax in updating this blog!  My only excuse is that I've become involved in doing genealogy and it's been taking up most of my computer time each day!  I'm really enjoying delving into the past...it's amazing what you can find on the Internet these days, which is fortunate since I probably wouldn't get into genealogy so much if I had to travel all across the country to dig into old musty files.

Blaze has continued to go to doggy day care three times a week for half days.  It's really made a huge improvement in him, both with meeting new dogs and new people.  He's also much calmer around the house since he gets a chance to drain all that puppy energy!  The picture below is kind of grainy because it's been encased in plastic:


I love this picture of Blaze at doggy day care and the expression on his face!  That's one of his girlfriends, CiCi, "attacking" him.

 The bank where we had our safety deposit box and savings account closed.  Fortunately, it happened while we were still in Spokane and could retrieve the items from the safety deposit box...I don't know what would have happened had the bank's closure happened when we were in Arizona for the winter!  The money, of course, is insured by FDIC, so I wasn't worried about it.

At the end of August, we loaded up the camper and headed west to visit with son, daughter-in-law, and grandson, Russ, Dani and Cameron in Tacoma.  We were going to travel US-12, but we found out that there was road construction past the junction with WA-410 with up to 2-hour delays, so when we got to WA-410, we took that road instead, spending the night at one of the Forest Service campgrounds along the road.  The next day, we followed 410 into Puyallup where we stayed at the Elks Lodge.  We found out that this Elks Lodge is closing (in fact, the property had already been sold), and a new, smaller, lodge is going to be built a few miles away.  The pictures below were taken from the rest area at Chinook Pass (except for the last one, which was taken along the road after we'd left the rest area):

We had a great time visiting with the kids.  Dani fixed delicious meals and even gave me her recipe for crock pot meat loaf, which I made once we got back.  We'll have to buy a different crock pot, though, because the small one we bought has a hot spot and one side of the bottom of the meat loaf got burned...that's what we get for spending only $9 for a crock pot!

Our good friends, Mike and Mary Michaels, invited us to their 50th wedding anniversary party...they'd rented the VFW lodge and had a grand party.  They, in turn, joined us for our 36th wedding anniversary on the 20th of this month...ours was a much quieter get together at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

As part of doing genealogy, we've started making trips to cemeteries where relatives are buried.  On Monday, we went to Pines Cemetery out in the Spokane Valley and were able to located my great grandmother, plus an uncle and aunt (my grandfather's brother and sister) and their spouses. 

Today, we're going to make a trip out to Mica Cemetery to see if we can find the grave stones of two more uncles (brothers of my grandfather).  This might be a harder task, even though the Mica Cemetery is much smaller.  At Pines Cemetery, we were able to go into the office and ask where the graves were located...they gave us a map with each grave marked.  There will be no such help at the Mica Cemetery...it is, evidently, in a state of disrepair and overgrown.  There is no office to go to, nor, apparently, anyone to ask about locations of various headstones.  So we'll just have to walk the cemetery and hope that the headstones are still there or that they're not hidden beneath a jungle of shrubbery. 

I'm using Ancestry.com for my Family Tree and it's where I've been getting most of my information.  I've also used FindAGrave.com, FamilySearch.com, and Interment.net to find information.

We're getting the house and the camper ready for our journey south, which will begin next week.  We'll take our time heading to Arizona...we plan on being there by the end of October/first of November.  We'll stop and visit my mother near Boise (where we'll take some trips to nearby cemeteries to look for relatives' graves) and then are planning on stopping by the HappiJac factory near Salt Lake to have them fix one of the camper jacks.  We haven't called them yet, so don't know if this will happen.