Merry Christmas, 2017 ~~

This travel blog, hopefully, catches all our friends and relatives up on what we did during the year.  We finished last year with a month stay in Tucson in December, and then moved on to our "Pebble Beach" camping area outside of Yuma by New Year's Eve.

If you are interested in seeing a larger picture, just double click on the picture.  If you want to learn more, there are many websites embedded in this blog, highlighted with an underline.  Click for more information.

December, 2016

Festival of Christmas lights Winterhaven (near Tucson) on a hayride wagon.  My favorite display was one home that had a puddle of water with a couple of coal eyes and a carrot nose (Frosty the Snowman had melted).
















The Miniature Museum in Tucson (this photo shows actual size of hanging picture with my fingers in the picture).

We took a day trip for wine tasting and a stop in Tubac with Mark and Cyndi.










Before leaving Tucson we had dinner with Mark and Cyndi; and Kari and Bruce at their clubhouse as well as Christmas dinner with brother Dick and Cindy (also with Mark and Cyndi).  Picture is of Dick with pork chops to be put on BBQ to be served for Christmas dinner.

Spotted in Tucson ~ a man riding a horse over the interstate highway.

A lizard that stood still long enough to take the picture









A double rainbow

Our last picture for 2016 is a Christmas greeting from granddaughters, Cally and Caily, who were in Moscow with all the snow on Christmas day.

January, 2017

This year every couple was invited to plan an activity for our group to do.  These are some of our day trips:

BBQ Cook off in Holtville CA.  Picture is of Tony standing in line to get ribs that he had to eat with his fingers standing up (his words:  "how philistine").

A site at the cook off was a girl walking around on stilts.

One day was spent in Quartzsite (cute sign spotted at an outdoor bar).  We met Dick and Cindy there and then they drove down to the desert for the early evening.

The Green door in Mexico was another outing.  No pictures can be published of this activity.  Tony calls it a place of "horizontal refreshment".  Gene and Holly were instrumental in making sure we all had a very unusual time.

Not a day activity, but one of our past times is looking for turtles.  Picture shows Bill and Janet watching to see where turtle goes (a slow process).

One day took us to Calipateria CA to see what was once the world's tallest flag pole.  Calipateria sits 184 feet below sea level and they have a flagpole 184 feet tall.  And then we all went on to Salvation Mountain.  Some of our group found it interesting...some not so much.

Another day trip was to watch the military free-fall training (see video of what we enjoy watching), and then on to Martinez Lake for lunch (where you can buy a hamburger that usually feeds four people).  After that we stopped at the date farm to get a date shake.  Picture shows Bill standing outside with our resident dog, Casey (Mark and Cyndi's) wrapped around his legs.






Interesting sites we saw:

A can opener attached to the outside of the vehicle  (good idea?!?)

Tony just doesn't stop taking pictures of sunsets.  This is just one of at least a hundred.

Cute Inlaw/Outlaw sign

Three of us ~ Sharon, Janet and Cyndi ~ spent some time crocheting and knitting in our desert home.

And...a lot of time was spent playing cards in our cargo trailer using the card holders made in the summer by Cally, Caily and I.







February

One of our day trips was to Castle Dome Ghost Town in Arizona where we saw Levi jeans made in 1890.

Some chose to do an evening meal at the Texas Roadhouse, and another meal at Karol's RV park for a great fish fry.

February was full of potlucks, nightly fires, planes practicing overhead, and dice playing.

Bob and Jean from UK visited us.  We filled their days by going to a date farm (picture), to Mexico, to the plank road, and the USA/Mexico fence, Gold Rock Ranch, dice playing, to the markets in Yuma...

...out to breakfast where we saw this 1939 pickup...

...ATV ride...

...old town Yuma to the art museum where we saw this "spark plug" art...

...more ATV riding (picture of Tony and I)...

...Trying to get a luminaire lit and in the air.

Tony decided he needed a cowboy hat and cowboy boots (picture shows him in his new outfit with Dan).

Jim and Kathie came down to see us.  Mark cooked steaks for one of the meals. while they were here.  Brother Ray and Judi also visited us just after Jim and Kathi left our site.

Picture shows Jim out looking for treasures with his metal detector in the desert.  He did find a pull tab from a soda can down about six inches (had to be before 1962 that this type of tab was used).










Another interesting sign.











March

Landon, 3 months old

After making my yearly trek to the local casino for a "butter burger" on my birthday the first part of March we headed home.  There was a new great grandchild to welcome into the family.  Landon Anthony Wilson (parents ~ Casey and Lindsay) was born in Moscow ID on March 6th.  We made it home to see him before he was a week old.

The rest of the month was spent cleaning up a water leak that had sprung with too much snow melting the same day we got home which flooded one room in the basement. 

Picture shows me in the hole we had to dig to put in another sump pump.  Also had to do a little repair on the mini motor home because the water tank cracked and repair dining room chairs from the motor home that won't make it another year.  And finally unpacking and putting the big motor home away until just after Christmas.




April 

We started going to the senior dinners that occur at the 1912 Center every Tuesday and Thursday and met a lot of new people our age.  We love going and I was invited to be the Secretary of the Board for the rest of the year which has been a fun challenge.

One couple we met have a grandson that was on Cody's baseball team so we saw a lot of them during the season.  Picture shows that it was cold for one of the first games (Jeanna and Dennis came prepared).

Landon (left); Henry (right)

Niece Hayley, Tyler and eight month old Henry came up from Boise which gave us another excuse for a family dinner.

(Pictured ~ Mae and Karla)  We took the mini motor home up to Cheney when niece Karla, Toshi, and Mae were visiting Bill and Janet.  Got to see nephew Tom also.









May

We started going to WSU's taste testing with our new friends, Win and Sue, as well as a day trip down to Peck ID to see where they used to live.  Going to WSU is always a good excuse to pick up some Cougar Gold cheese and get a Ferdinand's ice cream cone.

Mother's Day was spent with Dennis and family at the Casa Lopez restaurant.  We continue to go to DWilly's for lunch every Monday in order to visit with Dennis and Jeanna while they work the restaurant that day.  Memorial Day we went camping in Meadow Creek with the old gang.  We manage a few meals out in Genesse with Teresa and Jim.

More baseball with #5, Cody.











June

June was mostly spent working in the yard for me and in the shop for Tony, plus a few times around Dennis and Jeanna's pool and a lot of Cody's baseball games.  Picture shows Dennis doing a "baby trick" with Landon started in the family over 30 years ago ~ to see how young the baby can stand by themselves in one hand.

We took a day trip to Clarkston to see Tony's cousin Audrey.

Dennis and Jeanna came around one night to show us the new "old" car they bought ~ 1931 Ford Model A










July

July was filled with company.  Dan and Jeanne and Vern came a day early for our Pullman Rally with 19 desert RVers.  One dinner was here which included Mark and Cyndi also.  The Rally in Pullman was a huge success.

We celebrated Dan's 90th birthday the day after we had an emergency trip to the ER to stitch up Dan's head.  Activities at the Pullman Rally included trips to Ferdinands for Ice Cream and Cougar Gold, a visit to the bears on the WSU campus, a trip to Tri-State to see Idaho's most interesting store, and to Cowgirl Chocolates in Moscow ending up at DWilly's for dinner.

Kierra and Kenny

Kierra from Seattle was here for most of the month.  Cally came down almost every other week-end from Spokane and we all played a lot of cards.  Picture shows Tony and I with all the grandkids ~ Cally, Lindsay, Casey, Tony, Landon, Sharon, Kierra, Caily, and Cody at DWillys.

The girls staged this picture of all four of us ~  Kierra, Caily, Landon and I.








August

Casey, Sharon, Dennis, Jeanna, Kenny

Kenny came over to pick up Kierra ~ another trip to DWilly's (love that place).

Janet had surgery so we went up in mini motor home for the event ~ I'm happy to report that she came through surgery with flying colors.  Picture is of Janet and Bill is when they came down later to celebrate that she was "alive"!!  :-)

Sharon and Maddux

During this month we connected with Bill, Mark and Cyndi, Gay and Jim, Tammy and Steve to go to Alliance NE for the eclipse in our RVs.  A stop in Torrington to see a new addition to the family ~ niece Brit and Mark had a baby July 12 ~ Maddux Reed.

In our four days in Alliance at the Mann ranch, we packed in a lot of fun ~ going to wine therapy at Newberry's, seeing Carhenge, Doby's Frontier Town, steak cookout (picture eating steaks in Judy and Larry Mann's kitchen),

We went out to watch all the planes come into the Alliance airport for the eclipse (picture is of screen shot showing how planes were circling until it was safe to land).  A plane set down every two minutes for the 45 minutes we were watching.

We saw the eclipse on the line of totality in one of Mann's fields.

Panoramic picture shows party after eclipse back at the ranch.

RVs parked at Mann ranch

The RVs moved up to South Dakota next.  Brother Bill, Uncle Bob and I went out for a quick sandwich while everyone was setting up in Uncle Bob's vacant land.

We all went to Keystone, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, the Bad Lands National Park, Wall Drug, Prairie Berry wine tasting,  Hill City Wine/Brew and BBQ, Reptile Gardens, drive through the Needles Highway, Prairie Dog town and Custer State Park to see the Panhandling donkeys.

While at cousin Mary's Good Tyme Photo store in Keystone, we had this picture taken of all eight of us.

Unusual shirt found in Keystone.











September

An outing after getting back to Moscow was going to the Farmer's Market with part of the family, Pictured ~ Lindsay, Sharon, Landon, Cally, and Casey.

Most of the month was spent with family~ going to Cody's football games;

Going to Caily's volleyball games (she is #5 in the picture), week-end visits from Brother Paul, Brother Bill and Janet, and Cally.

Tony found a great bargain and we now have this piece of furniture in our home.






October

After that crazy trip trying to keep up with everyone younger than Tony and I in August, and all of the grand kid activities in September, we came back to reality in Moscow and started acting our ages ~ eye doctors, heart doctors, surgeons, and on and on.  :-)

In early October Tony had what you might call emergency surgery in Coeur d'Alene, ID on his 90% blocked carotid artery .  We saw the surgeon on Thursday, spent the night in the mini motor home with friends Joyce and Jon in Coeur d'Alene, did some pre-surgery tests on Friday, and then spent Friday evening with Cally in Spokane and on to Bill and Janet's in Cheney for the week-end before surgery on Monday.  Doctor kept Tony overnight in Intensive Care for observation, and then we drove back home.  We credit Tony's eye doctor with probably saving his life....so I decided after 14 years of no eye exam that I should go visit his eye doctor.

In between we managed a trip to Seattle with friends Win and Sue ~ went to Pike's Place Market, the bubblegum wall (pictured), a brewery, trivia night in a bar, and met lots of fun people.

Cute sign for this month

November

Within ten days of my eye doctor visit I was having cataract surgery in Lewiston ID on the right eye and scheduled for the second eye on December 5th.

December

Second eye surgery went well also.  In between Cody's basketball games, seeing Landon (the now nine month old great grandchild), we still continue to attend the Senior dinners and I have been elected to continue as secretary for the board.  Tony has also put up his hand to do minor maintenance work for the Senior center (eight folding chairs repaired this week).  I still do bookkeeping for Dennis and Jeanna and Tony does maintenance work for them to pay for our weekly free meals at DWilly's. 

Just this week we went with Bill and Sally/Win and Sue to see the Living Faith Drive Through Nativity Scene.  There was a massive amount of people on the first night.   

We are now counting down the days until we can become "snowbirds" again.  We plan to leave with Bill and Janet on December 27th ~ first overnight stop will be in Boise to see Brother Paul's new home and then on to Pebble Beach near Yuma.

We hope all our friends and relatives are having a great Christmas season and will have a wonderful New Year.

~~Sharon and Tony