Wow, I can not believe how easy it is to forget to post the updates on here. We have have been busy since the last time one of us posted anything. I don’t think that I’m going to talk too much about each place that we’ve been since then, but I will try to touch on all of those places.
If you follow us on Facebook, then you know about what happened in Santa Rosa, New Mexico at the Dairy Queen. I still can’t get over that. Anyway, despite that fiasco, we did still have a good time there. We were on the old Route 66. We went to see what they call “Blue Hole.” It is a naturally occurring waterhole that is so clear that you can see dang near all the way to the bottom of it and it’s 80 feet deep. That’s a good way’s down for looking through water. Here are a few pictures of that. Please keep in mind that the camera can’t see exactly what the human eye can see and reflections off the top of the water kind of destroy the greatness of this hole.
After we saw Blue Hole, we went for a cruise down some of the old Route 66. It was pretty cool to see some of the old buildings and stores and such from back in the day. It was a little sad how most of what used to be is now dead and gone. I have come to realize that I was a little too late to be able to see the real Route 66 and that I will never see it the way it was meant to be. But here are a few pictures of what we have seen so far.
From there we went to Shamrock, TX for a night and then off to Oklahoma to see a friend for a few days. We had a good time catching up with them and getting some rest. After that, we went to Arkansas to see cousin Leslie. We got a spot at a campsite very close to her new house and then we were able to spend the evening with her and her fiance.
Then it was time to go to Memphis, TN. Right on the east side of the border is the pyramid. I’m told that it used to be a sports center. Something like where they played basketball or something. If you really know me, then you know that I don’t like professional sports. The biggest reason for that is simple. I gave up 20 years of my life with the possibility to pay the ultimate sacrifice and I barely make anything. These guys play a game and make a fortune. Anyway, they turned to pyramid into the biggest Bass Pro Shop that I have ever seen. It was really cool, we even boondocked in their parking lot for the night.
After that was a place called Smyrna, TN and then Pigeon Forge, TN. Pigeon Forge was great. The Smokey Mountains are amazing. Rebecka was able to get another Jr. Ranger badge from there, as well. Here are a few of the pictures I took while we were in the Smokey Mountains.
Ok, I’m going to end this post for the night but I will write again tomorrow and trust me, it’ll be worth the wait. Ok folks, I’ll see you soon. Until then, keep the adventures going.
Hi, everyone!! We had an amazing day today. We started off a little bit on the wrong foot by having the alarm set for PDT and we are in MDT but the day did get better real fast. We went to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary for a free tour of their facilities. The tour is two hours long and it is very informative. We got to meet one of the dogs there and we got to spend some time in with a bunch of cats. The people there are really great people and they do allow volunteering. You can even choose where you want to volunteer, meaning you can choose what type of animal you want to help out with. In short, Best Friends is a great organization and their tour was very nice.
After that, we drove back up to Duck Creek Village and rented a UTV. That was so awesome!! We had a six-seater so that the three of us could all sit in the front and that really does make a difference. We drove on a bunch of ATV/UTV trails and we saw some amazing scenery. We even had the chance, and we took it, to have lunch up on the mountain, in the forest with an amazing view. Lunch was actually so cool that Rebecka said that it was the best picnic ever. Way cool. We were also lucky enough to get to see a buck and some doe, some wild turkeys, a badger and a few hawks. What a day!! I did find out that my right foot (gas pedal) has a habit of reacting to Rebecka’s laugh. Who knew? Her laughing and having such a great time riding in the UTV with us was just amazing for me. I could tell the spots that she really liked and I was able to make them just a little bit more fun for her. I love it when I can do that.
Alright, that’s it for today. Tomorrow we are going to go back to Best Friends and watch them train some of the horses there and then we are going to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes National Park. Rebecka really wants to see pink sand. We’ll see how it goes.
I spent 20 years in the US Navy and the most common thing I heard was “living the dream.” When you asked someone how they were doing, that was the most common response, living the dream. I have no idea what their dreams were like, but that wasn’t my dream. Now, living fulltime in my motorhome and traveling the country, for me, that’s living the dream.
So we have been living in our motorhome since the middle of July and so far, we are loving it. If you read my last post, then you are caught up until the last two weeks of August. Since then, we spent a few weeks in Camp Pendleton and then decided that it was time for a road trip. It was nice to spend some time in one place for a little while. I did get to go fishing almost every day, and I only got skunked one day. We met a lot of great people while we were there, as well.
Ok, time for a road trip. Nicole wanted to see something big to get things started. How about the Grand Canyon? Will that be big enough? I’m thinking it is. After we left Pendelton, we spent one night just outside of Barstow on a Marine Corps Base that I didn’t even know was there. I expect that I’ll be finding a lot of bases that I didn’t know about during our travels. After Barstow, we went to Las Vagas for two nights. We had a good time there and I might have spent a little too much money, but how much is too much anyway? Then, we went to Utah.
We are staying in Kanab, Utah for a week because there is so much to see in this area. Today we went to what they call Little Hollywood. Some of the early western movies were filled here. Because most of them were before our time, it really didn’t seem all that great to us. We also went to Moqui Cave. This place is interesting. This dude bought a cave back in the 40’s and put a bar and dance hall inside the cave. That’s pretty cool. His passion was really geology, archeology, and paleontology, the bar was just a fun way to earn money to pay the bills and pay for the digs and research that he loved so much.
Since we were already heading north, and I really wanted to check it out, we also drove up to a place called Duck Creek Village. Since we have been in Utah, “WOW!” has been the only way to describe what have been seeing. Duck Creek Village is no exception to that. The scenery was spectacular, to say the least. We ate at a little diner called Aunt Sue’s Chalet. The food was good, the price was ok, and the people were awesome. We are making another trip up there later this week because we are going to rent a UTV for a few hours and go ride some of the vast expanses of trails that they have there.
Below are some pictures from just today. It’s not all of the pictures that I took but I was having a lot of fun taking the pictures and even just seeing the things that I wanted pictures of. There were a few spots that I couldn’t capture with the camera and those spots are breathtaking. When you drive around some turns up in these mountains, you can very easily be blown away by the view that nature is offering.
We do have a lot more to do while we are here and I promise that I will write about them. Maybe some video or pictures. I’m not so good about getting videos posted but I’m going to work on that. So, until next time, keep living life and enjoying it. Try to take a few minutes each day to just stop and enjoy the view, or the quiet, because it really can make a difference in how you see the world. Thanks for reading.
Hello, everyone. I know that it’s been a while since I posted. I’ve just been really busy, as some of you already know. Well, here’s what’s going on. I’ll try to keep it somewhat short as to not have your mind wondering while you are reading this. I have been on terminal leave from the Navy since the beginning of July. It seems as though I’ve been working more now than I was when I actually went to work. In the timeframe between early July and now, we have gotten a lot of stuff done. We made a trip out to the Midwest to drop off some more of our stuff. Namely my truck and Harley. I miss them both. We have also gotten our house completely packed up and everything that we had in that house has been stored on our property in Texas, it’s been put into the RV, has been sold, donated or thrown away. I hate doing those moving purges, but I guess they need doing. We didn’t really want to move all the stuff we didn’t really want anymore. We were pretty close to the weight limit allotted by the Navy but we did come in under and that means that the move was free.
After we left the house for the last time, we went to Disneyland. We spent three nights and two days there and had a great time. Our last night at Disney was pretty freaking cool. During the day, we were on our way to go to Tom Sawyer Island and Nicole found a spot to get Fastpasses for the Fantasmic show that night. The best part was that it was the later showing of it. That was important because we had lunch at the Aladdin to get the Fastpasses for the Electrical Parade. We got to see the parade right at the start of it and that was cool, but because of that, we had time to get to the next show and not have to run. While we were in line for that, we met two wonderful young women, who just happen to work at Disneyland, and they made our time even more amazing. When Becka had a question about why they did things a certain way, my answer was simply, “I don’t know, I don’t work here.” But the young women with us in line would tell us the answers to those questions because they did know, they did work there. Cool!! We all learned a lot from those two. The Fantasmic show was amazing. Lights, water, fire, a whole lot of Disney characters, and just a wonderful show and we had a blast.
So now the time has come. I finally get some time to do nothing. Not really, I think I only get tomorrow because the next day, Nicole has a doctor’s appointment and then will basically be on bed rest for a day or two after that. I’ll get some time to do nothing at some point. Maybe. But you know what? I don’t really care. I’m having fun with my family and we are now able to dictate our own lives. What a great feeling. For those of you who have never served in the military, you might not completely understand how that feels. Just ask someone who did serve and they will explain it to you. If you actually need that, that is. Well, for now, we are set up in a park in San Dimas, CA and we will be here for about five days, I think. Then down to Camp Pendleton for a while until we are both done with appointments. From there, we don’t know yet. That’s all going to depend on how things go at those appointments.
Until next time, enjoy life and everything it has to offer. “Life’s a garden, man, dig it.” To quote Joe Dirt.
Last weekend we decided to take Winnie out for the first time and it just happened to be Memorial Day Weekend. What luck? We kind of decided last minute (the weekend before) that we wanted to go somewhere. Well, I’m sure you all know that holiday weekends are busier than the rest and you kind of need to plan ahead for that. Not us. We did it on a whim. Great idea. The only place that Nicole could get us into was in Ramona. For those that aren’t familiar with the San Diego area, the road to Ramona is up a mountain and is all twisty turny. The day that we got Winnie, it was raining. I know that I can drive pretty much anything if I’m given the chance, but come on! Rain the first time I drove it and up a twisty mountain road the second and then back down it the third. All in all, it went really well. I’m sure that I upset some of the car drivers that got stuck behind me, but they lived and so did we. Win, win. All of the driving went well and nothing exciting happened while driving. That’s good.
So, Ramona Oaks RV Resort, what’s it like? That’s a good question. It’s very nice. The park is very well maintained. There are maintenance people that live on site. They have a playground, swimming pool, club house that looks like a barn, horse shoe pits, kind of mini golf, a dog run. The place is pretty cool and we had a great time. I personally didn’t meet a lot of people but that’s kind of my style. I like quality over quantity and I feel like I got that this time. Our neighbors where really cool. The resort had a lot of things set up for the weekend like all you can eat pancakes in the mornings, a hot dog roast on Saturday, and an ice cream social on Sunday. Nicole and Rebecka went for the pancakes Saturday morning and the hot dogs that afternoon. On Sunday, however, they went to the ice cream social thirty minutes after it started and they were completely out of ice cream. What a bummer, right? Our neighbors took it upon themselves to go to the store to get some ice cream and they brought some back for Rebecka, as well. Way cool! Thank you! You know who you are and I am still touched by that. I believe that we had a good time together and I would love to be neighbors again someday. We’ll get more posts up after we are done with work and all that and have a little more time to focus on us. We will definitely be back in the area in the not so distant future.
Oh, I forgot to mention that there is fishing there, as well. Lots of grown men who have been fishing for a long time couldn’t catch anything. Our neighbors 14 year old girl was able to catch four or five fish in one night. I lost count, sorry. But I thought that was really cool. Guys were jealous as heck about that, but good for her!
Be sure to check back soon. There will be at least a video added to this post soon.
I know that it’s been a while since I posted anything, but I have been extremely busy the past couple of months. I’m very close to being done with the Navy for good. I start “house hunting and job hunting leave” next week and that lasts 20 days. Then I work for one more week and go on “terminal leave”. I finally made it to the end of 20 years of service. It feels awesome. I got my old project truck running again. Not everything works yet but it does move itself. That’s gonna make it a lot easier to put on the trailer for hauling it half way across the country.
Ok, so some people already know about it but a lot don’t. We have traded the Toy Hauler named Toby for a Winnebago motorhome. For those who want to know exactly what it is, it is the 31BE. The whole driver side is one big slide. At the front of the slide is the dinette. That’s followed by the kitchen, and then two bunks beds and lastly the wardrobe for the bedroom in the back. I know that we didn’t have Toby for very long, but we decided that we really wanted more space. We thought that there just wasn’t enough room or storage in Toby for us to live in for a year. We realized that we need to have clothing for all four seasons for all three us. We weren’t going to be able to do that comfortably in Toby. I think that if we needed to, we could have made it work. But we were able to get the “Winnie” and I’m very happy that we did. Nicole made a video of why we decided to trade up for a bigger one.
Check back soon, I plan to add pictures and a video to this post.
I just wanted to take a minute put a post up apologizing to everyone who follows our site for us not posting anything in such a long time. We have been dealing with quite a bit and things are starting to calm down now. We will be posting more stuff real soon. We do have a new video up on Youtube from our Yuma trip. There will be posts about that trip soon as well. Here is a link to the video of the prison.
We also went to a rodeo while we were there and there should be a video of that coming soon as well. That one might be a little shorter.
Anyway, I finally have my computer working the way I need it to and I’m finally not stressed about work so much that I can’t do anything else, so I should be able to post more about some of the things that we have done. We are very much looking forward to our next trip and can’t wait until we get to go and then I’ll tell you all about it.
Until then, enjoy all of the adventures you chose to take and all of the ones that life throws at you and make memories to pass on.
Oh, we are also planning to do some product reviews in the next week or two. We would like to share what things have made a difference in our adventures. Things like cameras and bags or cases, drones, and one of the best ones we have, the Instant Pot. What a game changer. I’ll tell you my thoughts on that in the next post. Bye, Ya’ll. And thanks for reading.
I feel that it is very important for me to give a shout out to the blog that pushed me passed that whole should I start a blog or not. I’ve been looking into and thinking about starting a blog for a few years and I kept thinking to myself that I didn’t have anything to write about that people would want to read about. Obviously something changed my mind. When we made the decision to start really traveling I figured that was a good time to get started. But I was still a little hesitant. I was reading other blogs about traveling and RV’s and things of that sort. I came across one that really touched me and pushed me over the edge. It is the blog that made me decide to start ours. That blog is Have Heart Will Travel. Please take a look at their site. They have some good stuff posted. My favorite, and the post that did me in is the post “Finally learning the Lesson of Margin. When I read that post, the only thing that I could think of is that is what I’ve been missing in my life for the last 20 years. I want that room for margin. I’ve been longing for it for so long. I’m unfortunately still unable to add that to my life at the moment but that day is coming. I retire from the Navy soon and then I will have control of my life again. The margin will be there. That is a promise to myself and my family. We are going to have a good time living out “the plan.”
Thank you again, Mark and Nancy for the inspiration to start our blog. For everyone else, please go check them out at Have Heart Will Travel.
Alright, it’s now time for our second trip with our new trailer, Toby. Check out Nicole’s posts to see how we ended up with Toby. So for this trip we are taking Toby to Disneyland!
We got our spot at the Anaheim RV Resort which is only a mile from the parks. They also have a bus that takes you right to the park and the bus ride was only about three minutes. The RV park was actually really nice. We basically got three spots for ourselves. We had a spot to park the truck and a separate spot for the trailer but we also got a third spot that was all Astro Turf and had a picnic table and umbrella on it and all that was on our porch side of the trailer. It was pretty nice, although for shade I really just used the awning on the trailer.
So we got there on Saturday and the plan was to leave on Wednesday and use our park hopper tickets Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Saturday was nice, we were able to take our time getting up to the park and getting Toby settled into his spot for the next for days. Since we weren’t planning to use the tickets that day, we decided to go to downtown Disney that day. Nicole and Rebecka had never been to a Rainforest Cafe before and that is exactly where we went. The food was good and they both really enjoyed the experience of a new restaurant. After dinner, we just walked around for a little while checking out all of the stores there and we were even lucky enough to catch a magic show right at the start of it and we were front row for it. The magician called on Rebecka to be the first volunteer but she was a little to shy for that and said no. He completely understood and didn’t push at all. We went back to Toby and enjoyed a nice peaceful nice in the trailer together. Oh yeah, we went back to the trailer before the fireworks started and we weren’t even sure that we would still be awake for them but we got very lucky and we were able to watch them from inside the trailer. How cool is that?
On Sunday, our 14 year anniversary, (How did she put up with me for that long? The truly amazing part is that she still likes me and still, for whatever reason, wants to stay with me. I feel extremely blessed and I’m very great full that she still loves and likes me enough to want to stay with me. It’s awesome) we had what I say is this greatest time I have ever had at Disneyland. We somehow ended up at several shows just as they were starting and we ended up getting front row seats for them. We had people give us Fast Passes that they weren’t going to use, they said it was an anniversary gift. We even got to ride in the very front of the Monorail with the pilot! I didn’t even know that was possible! Wow! That changed the entire experience of the Monorail for ever. Oh, one of the best parts of that day for me was the fact that Rebecka, who is 8, was finally ready to start riding some of the bigger rides. How long have I been waiting for that? So I’ll say it again, Sunday was amazing and easily the best time that I’ve ever had at Disneyland.
The next day, we woke up to rain. We weren’t really in a hurry to go out and get wet since we forgot to bring any rain jackets or umbrellas. I ended up laying in bed for a little while as I was waking up. While I was laying there, I ended up getting my first ever unexplained nose bleed. For me, that was a little bit scary. I mean, I’m 38 and this has never happened before. That lasted about 30 minutes before it finally stopped bleeding. Just to be safe and since it was still raining, we hungout in the trailer for most of the morning. We were letting the rain die down and trying to make sure that my nose was ok. We went to the park and had a good time. We had my sister-in-law and her daughter and son with us and we were all having a good time. Monday night was the night for the extra tickets that we bought so that we could do the Halloween Party that they had. Lots of trick-or-treating, ok, you stand in line and get candy. It was still kind of cool. I wasn’t going to carry a bag, but then Nicole mentioned how much the tickets cost and I thought that we might as well get as much free stuff as we can. One really cool thing about that time frame is that most of the people in the park were there to get the candy. That meant the lines for the rides were pretty much non-existent. We got on the Matterhorn in 5 minutes and Space Mountain in 10 minutes. We even had front row seats for the parade.
After the parade, my world turned upside down. I got another nose bleed and this time it wouldn’t stop. I’m not going to talk about all the gross and scary stuff but I will say that it was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. From Monday night till Tuesday night, I spent most of my time in the ER in Anaheim. What a way to ruin my trip. I’ve always been the one to “take care of the family” and this time I was the one who needed the help. Nicole and Rebecka stepped up and took that one head on. I don’t think that I could’ve made it through that without them. After my third time to the ER, Nicole decided that it was time to get back to San Diego and get me to my hospital. Nicole made her mind up and said that she was going to drive the truck with the trailer for the very first time while I’m sitting in the passenger seat bleeding all over the place and can’t help at all. She is my Super Woman! She got all of us and all of our things home safe and sound when I couldn’t do anything to help. Teamwork is so very important and is often taken for granted. Please don’t do that to your partner. Always cherish what you do for each other.
Well, I’m doing well now and the bleeding has finally stopped. The doctors couldn’t figure out what made it start or even where it was coming from. But it did stop and now I’m taking things easy to try to keep it from happening again. I will say, though, that even will all the stuff that I had to go through on that trip, I’m still looking forward to the next one.
This was a long post, but I think the point that I wanted to make is that as long as you are a team with your family, you can get through anything and still have a good time. We are all ready for the next trip and can’t wait for it to get here. Don’t forget to read Nicole’s posts. She has a different point of view and she talks about different topics. We are a team and we will always be a team. That’s how we roll!
Back in the day, 10 or 11 years ago, before we had a daughter, we had a toy hauler and some quads that we used to take to the desert on a regular basis. Usually at least twice a month. We started out with just a cargo trailer and tents. We cooked everything on the camp fire and life was good. Then we decided to upgrade to the toy hauler and things got a lot easier. At least at the camp site. It was quite a bit heavier than the cargo trailer and it made getting to and from the campsites a lot more challenging. But we did it and we had a blast. Then we had our beautiful little girl and we stopped going to the desert all together. We ended up selling the quads and the toy hauler and lived life in the city again.
Now our daughter is almost 9 years old and has started to like getting out of the house and seeing new things. So we ended up getting another toy hauler. I have to be able to take my Harley with me. We have only used it twice since we’ve had it but they are memorable trips non the less.
The first trip we took with it was the day we picked it up. We went through the whole process of learning how to use everything, which we didn’t get when we bought the used one years ago, and then we were off. We actually didn’t really go very far for that trip. We had to pick up the trailer about two hours north of where we live and we had a really cool camp site to check out on a military base on the way home. So we stopped with the trailer and stayed over night. We had a really great time staying in it that night. The plan was to pack everything up and head back home with it around lunch time. Well, that didn’t really happen the way we planned. We were all having such a great time with each other just hanging out in the trailer that non of us wanted to go home. We ended up leaving around three or four in the afternoon. It turned out just fine.
That first night, we boondocked it and went dry camping. It was mostly because I wanted to see how we would do with dry camping and it went pretty well. Nicole didn’t like sleeping with the generator running but it really didn’t bother me. We did learn more about the trailer by using it. We figured out that if you want to wash the dishes with hot water, you have to turn on the water heater. Funny how that works, huh? You can learn a lot by using something. Things that you just can’t really prep for. Things like having a trash can in the trailer. We couldn’t really figure out what size to get until we were in it for a little while and figured out the best place for it. We also realized simple things that can be easily forgotten about, like a broom. So we learned some of the things that we felt we were gonna need and things that we felt we were gonna want.
We got most of those things and we were ready for another trip. That will be in the next post, Disneyland, here we come. Until then, I really hope that you enjoyed reading this at least a little bit. And remember, this is all a work in progress and who knows, maybe the posts will get better. Until next time, here are some pictures from our first trip, happy travels and good luck. Here are some pictures from the first time out with the trailer. Don’t forget to check out Nicole’s posts. In the time line of things she has written posts on “A little bit about us“, “Choosing our toy hauler“, “The plan“, “Picking up Toby“, and “The first night“.
