2000 Travels......

November 29, 2000
We won't be traveling for awhile as the girls and their families are coming here for Christmas. We may take a trip in the spring or wait until fall as we have a yard to get planted. We are getting settled in and had a house full for Thanksgiving as Don's brother and wife (Ken & Ann) from southeastern KS and our son & family (Chris, Carol, Josh & Megan) from Bailey came for a couple of days. Plus, Bev's sister & family (Roy, Diana, Sean & Marc) were here for dinner. It was great to have them all here and we had a wonderful day!

October 13, 2000
We closed on our house on Sept 29 and the movers brought our stuff that afternoon. We are still unpacking but have things about in order. It has been kinda fun unpacking things we haven't seen for 2 1/2 years! But...our house in Richardson was larger and had LOTS more shelves and wall space!! We are certainly enjoying the dry Colorado weather! We took one afternoon off and drove up on Grand Mesa to enjoy the fall colors. The aspen are so pretty!!

September 3, 2000
Our new house is coming along nicely and we are scheduled to close on Sept. 29 so will discontinue our travels for awhile while we get settled and get the yard work done. We aren't sure when we will head out again.....maybe January, maybe not until next fall for a long trip.......

From Jackson, we spent one night in Green River WY and then headed on south. We arrived here on Tuesday, August 29 after spending 4 days in the Salt Lake City UT area so we could go to the Genealogy Library and do some research, and do some shopping. We spent a day in the library but didn't find much new information on our families. We did some motor home looking, and some other shopping before heading out..

August 23, 2000
Wednesday, while I did laundry, Don cleaned the outside of the trailer. It needed it bad after being in the smoke in MT and the miles of road construction on the way over here from ID. Then, in the afternoon, we took a drive over Teton Pass to ID and north aways to see the Tetons from the west. We were certainly glad we had not tried to tow the trailer over that pass!!! We drove up around Jenny and Jackson lakes Monday - it was a pretty drive but the mountains were not clear because of all the smoke. It wasn't as bad as the past couple of days, but is still bad. We could see the smoke from several fires and the whole area is smoky. One area on top of one of the hills, we could see the stumps smoldering as the fire was creeping over the hill. They did open the road up to Yellowstone this morning, but with all the fires up that way, I don't know how long it will stay open. We did see some wildlife: white pelicans (seems strange to see them up here and not just on the ocean!), teals, osprey, cormorants, yellow warbler, mergansers, geese - of course, and even a moose (quite close to the highway eating her lunch!). We found a really nice campground at Colter Bay which, if we ever come back to this area, we will plan to stay there.

Saturday we spent some time bird watching just north of Jackson. Sunday we didn't do much as Bev was suffering from a sinus infection irritated by all the smoke we have been in. We did wander around town a bit to find a place to eat and found prices in the shops horribly high. Many of the restaurants are the same - out of our price range!

August 16, 2000
We enjoyed our time in Couer D'Alene and had great weather most of the time. We took a sunset dinner cruise on Thursday evening and it was the only stormy evening while we were there! It clouded up just before we boarded the boat with heavy clouds so it got dark early and there wasn't much rain but lots of lightning. Then, as soon as we docked and got off the boat - it cleared up!!

We took one afternoon and drove all the way around the lake. It was a really pretty drive. Another afternoon we were able to visit with a good friend of Cindy's who we hadn't seen for many years.

From there we went to Mizzoula MT and then thru some of the forest fire area (not nice to see!) on to Bozeman to visit with college friends of ours, Loren and Evelyn Acton. We have kept in contact over the years but hadn't been together for probably 20 years so had lots of catching up to do!

We had a great visit with Actons! We had dinner with them Tuesday evening after we arrived in town. Wednesday morning they picked us up for a trip to Virginia City (MT not NV). It is a neatly preserved old mining town. We visited one of the museums there, did some shopping (Don bought a new hat), took a tour of the town on the old fire engine, took a train ride to Nevada City, had a delicious dinner and then went to a wonderful melodrama and variety show put on by the Virginia City Players. It was a full day and we had a great time!

Thursday we left for Teton Village. We planned to go through Yellowstone Park at the west gate and go south to the Tetons. Well, we got to the gate only to find that the highway was closed due to fire!! So, we had to turn around and go about 90+ miles further going nearly down to Idaho Falls ID and then east as we didn't want to try Teton Pass with it's 10% grade! We have enough trouble getting up the 6% grades!! We ran into some rain along the way and hope it helped put out some of the horrible fires in this area! We finally got there and parked in a nice KOA campground and found a great Mexican restaurant just down the road where we had a great supper.

August 8, 2000
We left Long Beach on Monday and moved to Fairview OR, just outside Portland where we spent 5 days mostly working on the database. We took one afternoon to go look at some motor homes and do a little shopping, one morning was spent doing some much needed cleaning and another afternoon we went shopping and found some light fixtures for the bathrooms in our new house on sale. We found a good restaurant, Marie Callenders, and had a delicious dinner our first night here. We had heard of them but hadn't eaten at one, but will do so again when we get a chance! We had done so much running the past couple of weeks, it was nice to stay home for a few days. We took one afternoon to go to Wal-Mart and check out some new RVs but spent most of our time in Fairview working. We moved on to Boardman OR on Sat. It was about half-way between Portland and Couer D'Alene ID so looked like a good stopping place along the river. There was a Village Missions church there which we attended and had a nice chat with the Pastor and his wife. They were leaving that afternoon for youth camp. It is neat to be able to visit some VM churches after being involved with Christian Women's Club (who supports them) for nearly 40 years! Monday we moved on to Couer D'Alene ID. It was a rather boring trip most of the way thru eastern WA with nothing but brown hills (some grass but quite a few wheat fields) but no trees anywhere except maybe around the farm houses. Just outside Spokane WA we finally got into trees again! Couer D'Alene is a pretty little town on the banks of the lake and we are looking forward to doing some sightseeing in the area.

July 29, 2000
We left Lincoln City on Monday (7/24) and headed on north to Long Beach WA. They claim to have the longest beach in the world at 28 miles. We parked in a nice park about two blocks from the beach. The beach here is pretty flat and the sand is quite soft - makes walking difficult! We had the first few days with clouds and fog, but several days it did clear off in the afternoon. Tuesday, we drove back to Chinook to visit a distant cousin of Bev's who we met through the Internet genealogy searching. We had a nice visit and she generously let us borrow her notebook to bring home and make copies of the information we didn't have. Wednesday, we drove up to the north end of the peninsula, driving through Oysterville with huge piles of oyster shells. There is a trail up at the park on the north end that goes out to the beach but it was too late to take it - we will have to go back! We found a beach access on the way back down and were hoping for a pretty sunset, but there was too much fog out at sea. We did find lots of broken sand dollars - but no whole ones. We took one day and did a little shopping and window shopping at a craft mall and the shops downtown. Friday, we drove to the south end of the peninsula to see the Lewis & Clark interpretive center and two lighthouses. We had a nice hike around the center and enjoyed a warm, sunny day. After a seafood dinner, we drove north aways to see the sunset and walk the beach a bit. Again, the fog offshore ruined the sunset! Saturday, we worked again in the morning on the database and then visited the Cranberry Museum and learned all about raising cranberries from planting to harvest. From there we drove north a little ways and found a U-Pick Blueberry Farm where we picked about 1 1/2 lbs of blueberries for 75 cents a pound! Yum! Then we drove on to the north end of the peninsula and took a 1+ mile hike on one of the trails through the woods and along the bay where we saw lots of gulls and sandpipers.

July 21, 2000

Well, we didn't buy a motor home - yet! We looked and looked, but didn't find the one that said "buy me".......

We had a great visit with Ron & family and left there on Monday (7/17) for the coast. We parked at the Lincoln City KOA. It is one of the busiest campgrounds we have been at! It is nicely set up and just outside town - away from the winds. The day we arrived, we explored the town and did some antiquing yesterday and had dinner overlooking the ocean. Tuesday, we worked in the morning and then took the Three Capes Loop, a 35-mile drive off Highway 101 between Neskowin and Tillamook. It is considered by many to be the preeminent scenic area on the north coast and was a beautiful drive. We stopped many times and took a hike down to see the Cape Meares lighthouse. We got home in time for the campground's ice cream social - 3 scoops of the famous Tillamook ice cream for $1! Yum!!

Wednesday, we worked again in the morning on the TECH database and then went exploring and had a delicious seafood dinner. Thursday, we went to the beach in the morning to catch the low tide and found some tide pools and lots of starfish. Then we found some neat antique shops, had lunch and then back to work for the afternoon.

Friday, we drove up to Tillamook and toured the Tillamook Creamery where we sampled their ice cream and brought home some cheese. Then we went to the Air Museum before heading back to Lincoln City.

July 5, 2000
We had a good time at the beach with the girls and had pretty good weather - windy, but mostly sunny. The tides weren't right to see good tide pools, but they did find a few. The aquarium at Newport was great! They have a new underwater display where you walk through areas with fish on all sides (and above and below) of you. Really neat!! A few days after we got back, the girls and Kathy headed for Denver on a mission trip. They worked at a mission in the inner city, held VBS and did some sightseeing. They came back tired, but had a good time.

We took a couple of days and went to Sisters and stayed in a B&B. It was a beautiful drive and we enjoyed shopping there. The B&B was great - friendly people and we watched the deer in their yard during the evening. They are so pretty! They were getting ready for a big quilt show in town, which would have been fun to attend, but they say the crowds are terrible!

While the girls were gone, Don & Ron took a Saturday and went fishing in a beautiful lake east of here and came back with several nice trout. We had a delicious dinner of them!

We have been looking at motor homes. Bev's back and neck arthritis has been bothering her more and more and we believe that jostling around in the pickup is aggravating the condition. A motor home would be much smoother riding! Switching is a big decision though!! Especially since we will no longer be full-timing - it is a big investment......difficult decision!

June 15, 2000
The Lake Tahoe area was beautiful! Tall pines kept the air smelling wonderful! We took one day and drove around the lake - it is gorgeous! So clear you can see the rocks along the edges. We can certainly understand why it attracts so many visitors!! We were there Memorial Day and it was quite a busy place!

We visited the Ponderosa Ranch, where the Bonanza TV series was filmed. The area is much more mountainous than in the series!

We took another day and drove to Virginia City, which has been kept like an old-time town - with lots of souvenir shops! That also was a very pretty drive. Sunday afternoon, we went to a craft fair in the park. Lots of neat things, but rather high prices.

Before leaving the Truckee area, we took time to visit the Donner Museum on Donner Pass. It was quite interesting to see all about the Donner Party and their trip in 1847. It is really difficult to imagine traveling across the plains, the Rockies, UT, NV and then the CA mountains by covered wagon!!!

We enjoyed our visit with Don's cousin in Sacramento and then headed north to Mt Shasta. It was a pretty drive and there were miles of blooming oleander in the medians - beautiful!

We stayed in a nice KOA campground in Mt Shasta and spent 4 nights there. One day we took a drive to the base camp on Mt Shasta where hundreds of cars were parked! There we found lots of hikers and skiers - they hike to the top of Mt Shasta and then ski down! That's a long hike!!!

Another day, we drove to Castle Lake, a beautiful, cold, clear glacier lake. It was a gorgeous drive!

We found a very friendly Evangelical Free Church to attend on Sunday and then drove to McCloud where we found a flea market and wandered around it awhile. Fun!.

From Mt Shasta, we headed on north to Grants Pass OR where we spent one night at a campground on the banks of the Rogue River. From there, it was on to Springfield OR where we are parked in a vacant field behind our son Ron's home. We got here in time for Heather's final band concert and Stephanie's last soccer game. Heather's graduation was nice - it is hard to believe she is that old! We have had a good time here visiting with them all (including Heather's boyfriend, Jared). We are going to go to the coast with the girls this weekend and go tide pool searching. The weather is supposed to be sunny so it should be a fun trip. We will probably also visit the Aquarium at Newport.

May 26, 2000
We left Grand Junction and headed west on Tuesday, May 23. Bev's sister had to return to the Drs in Denver on Monday as the infection in her back had flared up again. Tuesday, they decided to go ahead and remove the rod from her back as they felt the bones had formed as they hoped and the infection won't go away with the metal there. So, she won't have to look forward to doing that in November! Now to get recuperated from the surgery and get rid of the infection, hopefully, for good!

We spent our first night out in Nephi UT after a long day, for us! We didn't get in there until about 5 pm. Nephi seemed to be a nice clean little town. From there, we spent the next night in Wells NV and then on to Winnemucca NV. Nevada was not as barren as we expected, many hills and while there wasn't much civilization, the hills were quite green and pretty. Winnemucca was settled in the 1800's by many Basque sheep herders. We dined at a Basque restaurant and had a wonderful huge meal, served family style. They started with a wonderful vegetable soup and homemade bread. Then came the salad and delicious pinto beans course. After that they served the "side dishes" which consisted of a delicious beef stew, some sort of spaghetti with a white sauce, chicken and rice, and pig's feet in a red sauce of some kind. Then we had our choice of fish, rib steak, fillet mignon or, our choice, roasted leg of lamb which was wonderful. Then, coffee and bread pudding for dessert. We won't have to eat for a week!!!

Friday, May 26, we finished our trip through NV which got drier as we went west. Arriving in Reno, we began our drive into the mountains and the scenery was MUCH improved! We are camped in Truckee CA for the next 4 nights among the pines. It is great! We plan to do some sightseeing, shopping (there is an outlet mall nearby!), relaxing, and maybe a little work! Then we will head on to Sacramento where we will visit Don's cousin and then up to Mt Shasta.

May 13, 2000
Don arrived in Grand Junction last Friday (May 5) and decided that traveling alone is not what he wants to do! We will be on the road again on Monday (May 15) heading west! We are looking forward to seeing our son Ron and his family who we have not seen for nearly 3 years! My sister is doing better and off the IV antibiotics so can manage on her own now. We had a nice visit, I had some time to do some quilting and we got a couple of sea shell wreaths made. It's fun to have someone to work with! We also got in a game or two of Boggle almost every day.

After much house-hunting, we bought a home here in Grand Junction which will be built for us and ready when we return in the fall. We don't plan to totally quit traveling, but Bev is ready to put down some roots again and have a home base and Don is looking forward to doing some woodworking again in his new shop. It is a 4-bedroom ranch so we will have room for an office, Bev's sewing room and a guest room (and we would love to have it kept busy with visitors!). Right now we have a wonderful view of Mt. Garfield and Grand Mesa but that will diminish as they build other homes east of us.

March 24, 2000
We did a little shopping at the outlet mall on the way to Austin and had a good visit with Chuck & Sherel Knesel in Austin and arrived in Dallas on Monday, March 13. We worked there for a week taking Sunday off to go up to church with Bev's cousin & have dinner with them. We came on to Longview on Monday, March 20 and have been working most of the time on the new database for Missionary TECH Team. We have had some frustrating days still trying to learn the language and get things working! A class on 4D would be helpful!

Bev's sister has had the infection in her back reoccur and Bev will fly to Grand Junction in the next few days to help her as she recuperates. It's back on the IV antibiotics for 8 weeks! So, Don will stay in Longview a little longer than originally planned and then pick Bev up around the first of May to travel on west.

March 8, 2000
Well, after two, sometimes frustrating, weeks of hard work, we got both of the programs up and running for the two missionaries. Satan was busy bugging us those two weeks - every time we thought we had the program ready and would re-test it, we would find another problem! We are thankful for those who were praying for us during that time as it could have been worse!!! We did manage, most days, to take time to eat lunch outside and enjoy the birds and the park, but worked long days! We also took one evening off and went into Mexico with our missionary friends for a delicious quail dinner.

Now, that work is done and we are taking a few days R&R here in San Antonio TX before heading north and back to work on the 4D program for TECH. Yesterday, we caught up on some housework and today we went down to enjoy the Riverwalk. We had a great lunch at a sidewalk cafe and did some shopping. The city bus stops right at the campground so we don't have to drive downtown and pay high parking fees.

We will leave here Saturday morning, take time to stop at the outlet malls at San Marcos on our way to Austin where we will spend the night so we can visit with long-time friends, Chuck & Sherel Knesel, who live there. Then, we will spend a few days in south Dallas where we have someone willing to help us with out learning 4D!

February 23, 2000
We arrived in Port Aransas TX on January 21 and got a great site across from a small lake. From the window I could see the lake and the dunes between us and the gulf. We could hear the waves and they lulled us to sleep at night!! We stayed at the Pioneer RV Resort just south of town. It is a large CG - around 320 nice-sized sites with more being added and an active social calendar. Bev took advantage of line dancing lessons once a week, we enjoyed a couple of pot-luck dinners, went down to play their version of Bingo on Saturday nights and enjoyed the ice cream socials on Sunday evenings. Next year, we are thinking about going back there for at least 3 months and Bev hopes to get involved in the quilting group. This year, we have been too busy working on databases for that! We took a bus trip with others from the CG down to Progresso Mexico for shopping and stopped at a huge fruit stand for oranges, grapefruit, etc. on the way home.

We even took some time for beach-walking on the nice days. One weekend, they had a beach "snowman" contest with many really neat sand sculptures! We did have about a week of cold (40's) drizzly weather, but it soon passed and the sun came back! We haven't found as many shells this year as we did last....but I am sure we have plenty!! We have also done some bird watching and have seen many wonderful creatures.

We enjoyed the services at the First Baptist Church in Port Aransas on Sunday mornings. They have a good Pastor and everyone is friendly. We went to a "Over 50's" pot-luck dinner on Valentine's day there and had a great time.

We left there February 21 and moved down to the Bentsen State Park in Mission TX - a great birding area! We have a great site here nestled among the mesquite and it is more like camping than we have seen in quite awhile! We took a walk around the park this morning and saw two different woodpeckers, lots of yellow finches, green jays, a beautiful oriole, chachalacas, cardinals and. of course, lots of grackles. We will be in this area for two weeks working on a couple of databases being used here by missionaries.

January 8, 2000
Happy New Year!! We spent the holidays in St Peters MO with our youngest daughter, Cindy, and her family and had a great visit. Pam and family were also there for Christmas before heading down to TX to visit Tracy's brother and family. We also had time to get together with a few friends while we were in MO and it was great to catch up with their doings. After Christmas, we helped Cindy paint her kitchen and Don tiled the area between the cabinets. It all looks great and she was glad to have that job completed!

We spent New Years Eve with Cindy & Ed playing Sequence (a fun board game we recently acquired) until after midnight, taking time out at midnight to go outside (and freeze) and see some of the fireworks - it certainly was noisy around there!

Monday we left MO and went down to Hot Springs AR for three nights at a great B&B in a beautiful old (1890) mansion! They fixed wonderful breakfasts - we didn't eat lunch any of the days! If you are ever in the area - it was the Williams House B&B and we highly recommend it! (We found it on the internet.) We toured the area lakes, found some neat antique malls, great restaurants and Bev enjoyed a whirlpool bath and massage in one of the old bath houses which is still operating - it was wonderful for those aches & pains!!!

Thursday morning we came back to Longview TX and will be working here for just over a week before heading down to Port Aransas and the BEACH!!!