I just liked this picture of Ron looking for non-existant agates on Agate Beach on the OR coast.

 Okay - so...we left Leadville and headed BACK TO NORTH RANCH (our winter roost):

Returning “home,” we had the drive from hell in pouring rain and driving winds down I-5 from Oregon to San Jose, CA where we parked at the Elks Club and where we were able to reconnect with our old friend Demguize (a.k.a. Paul) in San Francisco and have our traditional Dim Sum lunch.  He knows where the BEST view of the city is but I can’t tell you or else.  And no trip to the area would be complete without my spending a few days with Willie, my Bead Mom, and watching her enthralled by a slot machine at a casino.  From there, we continued down to San Clemente beach where my childhood friend, Debbie, visited for an overnight.  Nothing like old friends, huh?  Then on to North Ranch with an overnight, en route,  by the side of the highway in Quartzsite, AZ.

WINTER 2010-2011AT NORTH RANCH UPDATE:

Of course, we did some hiking near North Ranch with a special hike to see crested saguaros

which are usually quite rare…like, one in 1,000 saguaros or something.  This area had four of them!  Right after Christmas, we took our house to Pasadena and worked on the HGTV float for the Tournament of Roses Parade.  What an amazing experience.  If Ron never sees another crushed walnut shell in his life, he’ll be happy…he spent most of his time crawling into tight spaces and gluing them in until the last day when he rioted and switched to decorating a pine tree (a real one) with fancy orchids.  I was assigned to detail work…one-petal-at-a-time type work.  We’re thinking of going back this year since it was so much fun.  However, we will NOT spend the night on Colorado Blvd. to ensure that we get a front row view of the parade. That was miserable! 

From there, we visited our transplanted NY friend, Dee and her husband, Charlie, in Indian Wells. We parked at the nearby Elks Club but dined with them every night…we LOVE it when Dee cooks!  Then, on to two nights by the Salton Sea (seven times saltier than the oceans)

and finally visited The Slabs…”interesting” place… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_City From there, we actually stayed at a campground in Yuma with some beading friends who introduced us to Algodones, Mexico.  They’d spent a lot of time crossing the border into Algodones for dental work.  In fact, walking around the small “business district” there, we saw almost nothing but dentists, pharmacists, and eyeglasses shops…and a lot of cheap souvenirs and hawkers who “will make you a good deal!” 

Soon after that trip, I was off to Tucson for the annual Gem Show(s) with my crazy, fun friend Melody who had a booth at one of the shows again.  Naturally, I shopped, took a polymer clay class, ran into my old bosses from 3 Beads & A Button in Cupertino on a shuttle bus (!), and picked up some treasures for Bead Week.  Once again, we had over 100 participants for Bead Week which ran so smoothly thanks to a LOT of help from a lot of people.   Oh, and this year, for La Fiesta, we learned how to play Beanbag Baseball and we learned how to lose gracefully.  (Our umpire was blind, of course!)

SPRING 2011:

Right after Bead Week, Ron and I took off for Minneapolis, MN with a side trip to Bloomfield, CT to see my Aunt Louise and to arrange to have our collection of artwork, which had been stored at her house, shipped to the condo.  Then, we spent five weeks getting the condo in livable shape which was an amazing undertaking since we had absolutely nothing there except a half roll of toilet paper and a plastic cup.  Our friend, Katie, became our decorating advisor…she does wonders with bookshelves and picture hanging.  We’re not finished yet but we went ahead an invited all of our remaining MN friends over for an open house.  It was so good to see everyone looking so well.  The pièce de résistance of the condo is, of course, the view.  It’s awesome! 

So, the “urban cabin” is now ready for use and is available to any of you who might be passing through Minneapolis and need a place to stay.  

Okay, time to take a break again.  I have to edit more photos and figure out where we went next.

SUMMER 2010 - YUP...a whole year ago!!

May 2010 - yes this is all about LAST year!!!

We went to nephew Taylor's H.S. graduation in Orlando, FL.  His graduation present was "The Richard Petty Experience".  Uncle Ron drove, too!

 

En route to Leadville, CO, we stopped in Moab, UT.  Our friend Brent arrived there ahead of us and scoped out great boondocking sites.  We went to Arches National Park where we dragged Brent up the trail to Delicate Arch.  He’s forgiven us, I think.  We spent a lot of time at Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse State Park.  We’d been to all of these before but this time I got my Junior Ranger badges at each park and, because of that, I was eligible to earn a Red Rock Ranger badge!  How cool is that?  So I did it and I now have a beautiful patch to prove it.  Did you know that you can get 25 cent wings at the brew pub in Moab?

 

On the road to Moab

CANYONLANDS     and                                                          3 Jr. Ranger badges and one Red Rock Ranger badge!

Hwy. 91 into Leadville - yes...in MAY!              AND                Distant Hatchery under Mt. Massive

LABYRINTH AT LEADVILLE NATIONAL FISH HATCHERY

 

When we left you last, we had just arrived in Leadville, CO for another action-packed summer at 10,000 ft. altitude at the Leadville National Fish Hatchery.  The 122-year-old Colorado sandstone building continues to be returned to its original glory.  Last year the front door was completely disassembled (40 pieces), stripped, reassembled, repaired and adorned with reproduction brass hardware.   Ron worked on what he called the Sonic Death Project  (you can ask him about it) and I reworked the hiking trail signs and honed my freehand routing skills some more.  Ron, becoming a crazy Coloradan for the summer, hiked Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in CO and the second highest in the lower 48.  I, not being quite so crazy, only hiked the local Highline Trail which only goes up to 11,000 ft. and together we hiked to Douglass City, a ghost town abandoned with the demise of the Midland rail route and up to Timberline Lake…only 12,000 ft.  Of course, we maintained the fabulous Nature Trail at the Hatchery and built some more steps on the steep parts. Also, I decided that we needed a labyrinth up in a quiet, level, sunlit, section of the picnic area near a pond and a waterfall, so after some web research, we built it!  Our friend, Burn, was visiting and helped gather rocks for it.  It’s an architectural masterpiece of course and we’re pretty darn proud of it.  We had a small Summer Solstice celebration up there but no one got naked, as threatened.  Maybe next year? Oh, and I also wrote some brief articles about the hatchery for the Leadville Herald Democrat and actually got bi-lines!  Being published is a kick.

FLOAT - BOOM DAYS 2010

One of the best parts of the summer was participating in the Boom Days parade.  Ed, the boss, designed a gorgeous float with a silhouette of the hatchery building and a collage of vintage photos which I had the privilege to edit in Photoshop.  Ron and I decided that that wasn’t enough so following that float, we had Paige, the biologist, dressed as a Fish and Wildlife mermaid, sitting on top of the small fish delivery truck and Mark, a Friend of the Hatchery, fly fishing with a training rod off the back of the truck, which was decorated with two “Zillion Bubbles” machines.  The rest of us walked behind the float wearing Greenback Cutthroat Trout hats which we designed and fabricated.  We were a hit and won second place in our category!!  If we’d had little kids on the float, we would have come in first for sure.  Ron wants to put the little truck in the parade again next year…with new hats which he thinks we could make into collectibles.

AND, once again, crazy people biked 100 miles and ran 100 miles, straight through, for the Trail 100 events.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadville_Trail_100   And, once again, we directed traffic and fed runners and their pacers for 22 hours.  As exhausted as we were after the race, I’m sure the runners had the right to complain more than we did!  We recruited friends (Brent, Burn, Diane and Brad) to help us out and next summer, Linda and Jim, our North Ranch neighbors will come for the whole month of August to help!

A LITTLE DIVERSION HERE:

PEOPLE STORY:

A couple of Hatchery visitors found us one afternoon and wondered if there were any volunteer jobs available because they were working at a state hatchery about 40 miles south of us and were NOT happy about their set-up there.  Turned out that they were also Escapees (the RV club we belong to) so we were quick friends.  They also were from Louisiana, Ron’s home state.  When we went down to visit them and tour their hatchery, we met their co-workers and had a discussion about food (since we were headed out to dinner).  The conversation turned to shrimp and oysters and crawfish and this woman told us that they were not food!  According to Deuteronomy…(she lost us right there)…the only real food is/are ungulates.  Cows, deer, swine, horses, and elephants (I just looked that up!)  It’s always good to learn something new.

2010 SUMMER VISITORS:

CHAFFEE COUNTY RODEO

 When Burn was in the area, we went to the Chaffee County Fair which had a small but mighty rodeo…and dramatic weather…and good BBQ….and a tractor pull.  Our friend Jim, from MN, came for a visit, too, so we explored the old mining areas around Leadville and tested our new Subaru on the dirt road over Shrine Pass.  We drove over Independence Pass, too…the only way to Aspen, a town waaaay too ritzy for our taste though we do have a favorite pizza joint there.  We continued on to Maroon Bells which was gorgeous…worth going back for a longer visit.  Our friends Stephanie and Don who were vacationing in Santa Fe, drove up to surprise Ron for his 60^th birthday.  With them, we drove over  Cottonwood Pass and lunched in Crested Butte and then went to visit their friend, Debbie, at her fishing “camp” in Gunnison.

AFTER LEADVILLE - SEPTEMBER 2010 

 

Jones Hole Fish Hatchery - Vernal, UT

Tasty results of crabbing with Liz an Russ

We headed west into UT where I earned a Junior Ranger badge at Dinosaur National Monument, visited the Jones Hole Fish Hatchery (gorgeous and very remote), drove through Flaming Gorge, had a minor breakdown on the Idaho border, visited Catherine Creek State Park in Oregon where our friends, Jerry and Dee were volunteering, spent time with our friend Sandy Zoo in Bend and ended up in Eugene at Davis Cabinets to update some cabinets in the ‘Mingo Motel.  Ron loves to show off his new 40” flat screen TV with surround sound!!  I’m happy with the new dining area.  While in Oregon, we went to Newport and visited the Rogue Brewery, up to a beach where there was a kite festival (and the kid who was on America’s Got Talent was there flying his kites) and then down to Winchester Bay learn how to go crabbing with our friends, Liz and Russ.  They were, as always, most generous with their equipment and their time.  Up early in the a.m.  Setting pots,  Checking every few hours. We didn’t catch many crabs but we got enough to pick and freeze.  Some of their friends there throw an annual Cioppino Party and we were there in time for it.  Fantastic!!!

BACK TO NORTH RANCH (our winter roost)

I'm going to stop here because I'm frustrated.  There are so many more photos that I want to attach so I'm going to go ahead and put them into an album on our Picture Trail site...when i get around to it.  I'll let you know when that happens.  For now, we have some touring to do....

 

SETTING ITI UP

Okay, I think I've got this thing set up even though the colors aren't what I wanted. I'll live with what we've got so far.  Now....to look back over 18 months of photos to see what might be REALLY interesting to you poor folks who fell for this.  It might take a while, a long while, so bear with us.

WE GIVE IN!

                                               THE MINGO MOTEL

Okay, we give in.  We are SO behind in our "Life in the RV" updates, like at least 18 months, so we decided to try this blogging thing to post photos of where we've been.  We have no idea how to use this Blogger thingy (at least Cathy doesn't) so bear with us as we figure it out.