We made it

 We made it to our winter home, but it was hard. On our way, a huge rain storm was coming up Arizona 95 right at us. We stopped in Quartzsite for an hour to wait it out, but that didn't work. We started to head south, but all the washes were running hard. We drove thru 3 of them. The first one was 6 inches deep the next 2 were a lot bigger, maybe a foot deep with lots of debris flowing in it. We saw a pallet and a huge, free limb flowing by. Those 3 washes are small ones. The big ones are a few miles south that we had yet to go through. So we pulled into BLM land and stayed the night. We are NOT dry campers! We love a full hook up. The batteries started to go low after about 6 hours. I guess you shouldn't watch TV when you dry camp. So I started the generator to charge them up and I noticed the exhaust pipe was GONE on the generator! Not sure when we lost that, but it was gone. It still ran OK.

  

We pulled over right after that wash.

This was one of the small ones. There are probably ten or twelve more to make it home from here and are a lot bigger.

In the BLM land (Bureau of Land Management).

On this summer's trip we did 5130 miles, $7887 in parks and $2156 in fuel cost. We got about 9.4 MPG. That's better than the big truck we had. About the only thing that we had go wrong was the battery in the car. The old one made it 99,991 miles on it.

But we made it back and now it's time to get stuff done.

Our water pump quit working right after we got back. So that was a huge job to fix it. We had a spare pump. But you have to take the water system all apart to get to the pump. It took Peggy and me 7 hours to get the job done. We moved the pump down so next time I can change it in ten minutes!

It was a 3 band aid job.

 Then we got some new steps to get in the RV. Cheap Amazon steps from China. We had to reinforce the bottom step as it was bending. I took it to the local weld shop and got it reinforced. It only cost $50 to fix it. But now they work great. I posted a bad review on Amazon, but they removed it after one day. So, that's not good for other buyers.

Then . . . This is huge! We got some Bird deterrents installed in the RV port. This should keep all the birds out of it and stop all the bird poop!

We already made a trip to Mexico to stock up on drugs and stuff and had lunch and a couple of Dos Equis.

We went to the VFW for Queen of Hearts drawing, but didn't win anything. But we had a good time with Barney and Dave. (and a photo bomber)

Our favorite place has changed names to "4 LOKO's Sonoran Grill" and the food is great.

They remodeled a little bit and added 5 more tap beers to the list.

For $55 you can get this huge platter of food. It's got ribs, Rib eye steak, Sausage, Chicken and all the fixings. They still have some of the old A&R stuff on the menu. It's our new favorite place again.

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A fire hose flag in the High Tanks Taproom in Welton, AZ. Pretty cool. and they have great beer.

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

 

Almost to our winter home.

 We've made it all the way to Bullhead City! We are at our regular stop at Vista Del Sol RV Resort. We stop here all the time on the way up and on the way down, so we can go to River Dog Grill and get the best Philly Steak and Cheese sandwich in the world!

We also stopped in Sparks, NV at Sparks Marina RV Resort for a week. Had a little trouble with the car. The battery went south. Had to get it replaced. It had 99991 miles on it so, it was ready to change. We went to a bookstore and right next to it was an auto repair shop! That was a sign to change it. It only took them about 40 minutes to put a new one in. It was great.

In Sparks we hit some of our favorite places and took a little trip to Virginia City. On the way we saw some wild horses right on the road. Some people say the horses are a bad thing and it's against the law to feed or give them water.

Virginia City has some really cool old buildings from the late 1800's.

The Ponderosa bar had a mine tour right inside it. It had been a bank at one time.

We also stopped at Eagle Lake RV Resort in Spalding, CA. It's a really nice park. This time of year there are not many campers here. 

Big beautiful pine trees in the park. The lake is across the street. It looks like it's pretty shallow. A landing strip is also across the street where a couple planes had landed. One guy and a kid landed and stayed in the park in a tent. The park worker went and picked him up in a golf cart. 

The park had these fire hoses in the park just in case of a forest fire.

We also stopped in McCloud, CA for two days at a nice old park. This Brewery was right in front of the park. The beer and pizza were pretty good. It was a good stop and we left the mouse we had from Newport. The mouse was in our ceiling. It took a couple of days to get him, but he came out and Katie did see him. She was on the hunt to get him, but Peggy put the slide in and the mouse jumped down in the step well. I opened the door and he jumped out and ran like hell. That was the first mouse we've had in this motor home.

That park had this really cool Pizza oven. It was huge. I would've liked to try to cook a pizza in it. I think it would take a long time to heat it up. But it was cool!

We also stopped in Beatty, NV for one night and went to the Happy Borro and I had their world famous Chili Dog, it had 3 hot dogs on it.

So we're going to be back at our winter home tomorrow! Katie is ready to get there. She loves running around without her harness.

 

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Mad Dog Tavern!

Live Happy and Always Go Big. 

   

Starting our trip home soon

Still here in Sawyer's Landing in Yaquina City. But next week we start our trip back to Fortuna Foothills. We're going to take 3 weeks to get there. We've made all our reservations to make it back.

The weather here wears us down here after a time. It's a little too cool for us, but we like coming here. We've hit all our favorite places. We went to Depoe Bay and had lunch at The Depoe Bay Brewery. I had the salmon fish and chips and Peggy had Chowder in a bread bowl. They were both great.

Depoe Bay harbor is the smallest natural harbor in the world.

This is the entrance to the harbor from the bridge.

This is how boats have to come into the harbor. They come flying in and have to make a couple of turns to get in. Sometimes it's only 7 feet deep.

 

Peggy getting a couple of good shots offshore.

The coast in Depoe Bay is pretty rocky.

Right after we got here a 40 foot fishing boat sank here in Newport. They were on the way into the Yaquina Bay harbor. Some young guy was just along for a ride and was lost at sea in the wreck. Sad story. Here is a link to the story Newport crab boat lost. Very interesting reading.

They towed in another boat that was salvaged right behind us one day.

They were pumping it out as they towed it up the river. It didn't look too good. We don't know the story on this one.

We had to do the tourist thing and go down to the Sea Lion Bar and have an expensive beer and see the Sea lions on the dock.

Our friend Dennis stopped by. The park where he's at in the port is raising the price, so after 12 years, he's moving to this park for a month. It's really hard to get in this park. He had to work hard on Mandy to get in. 

They had a BBQ and music at The Mad Dog Tavern for Labor Day weekend. The band was good and the food was killer.

The research vessel, R/V Atlantis came to the international dock just down the river from our park. 

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Beautiful flower right here on our site. 

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

 

Yaquina, OR

 We made it to our one month stay at Sawyer's Landing RV Park and Marina on the Yaquina River just four miles up the river from Newport, OR. We have a great site backed up to the river. We can watch the baby seals swimming around right in front of the RV. So far the weather has been great in the low 70's to the mid 60's and sunny.

Katie loves this site too. Just laying out in the warm sun.

One of the baby seals. So cute but they are kind of hated here. The locals say they eat too many salmon. 

We got the motorhome washed in a really nice park in Mountain Home, ID. It's kind of hard to find someone to come and wash the RV, but we got a good wash guy to come and do it. When we get back to Fortuna Foothills we will get our regular guys to wash and wax it.

It looks like no one is sailing this boat!

This was our site in Mountain Home RV Park right after the wash job. We liked this park. Next time we'll stay longer. It had a huge site and a nice dog park Katie liked. She met a lot of dog friends. 

We added a couple of Blink cameras that mount with suction cups on the side of the RV and one on the inside to keep an eye on Katie.

They are working pretty good so far.

And this is what she does when we're gone! You can talk to her from the camera, but she really didn't care too much.

Peggy spotted a hot air balloon and got a good picture of it.

We have had some great sweet corn a couple of times. So good.

But last night we had meatball subs. I think they were the BEST meatballs I've ever made.

Our Bartender in Pre-Funk Tap house in Nampa, ID. I forgot her name but she has great painted nails.

 

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The queen!

Live Happy and Always Go Big.

 

   

ARCO!

 We are in Arco, ID at Mountain View RV Park. I love this park. We have a huge, pull thru site. The best thing is, in the office they have a BBQ restaurant that makes THE best BBQ ribs! We were here last year and had the ribs, so we had to come back for more. I have had the ribs twice this week.

Our Bartender, Josie here in the park.

You can rent a atv here in the park.

Pick a helmet and away you go!

The drive here was so beautiful. Two lane road all the way down State Rd 93.

We stopped in Hamilton, MT and stayed at Anglers Roost RV Park right on the Bitterroot River. A ton of drift fishermen launching every morning.

Here's Katie and I down at the boat launch by the fish totem pole.

They had the Bitter Root Brewery. The beer was good and the food was killer. We had a Gyro. We have a hard time finding Greek food on our travels.

This is kind of a funny thing in Montana; in a brewery they can only serve you 48 oz of beer a day and they close at 8pm. So they check off the beer every time they bring you one. That is just weird.

Then we moved to Challis, Mt. stayed at Round Valley RV Park. Really nice park with big sites. But the town is a Zero. We ate at the Challis Roadhouse and the food was good. The other place in town was Bux's Tavern. We went to Bux's to watch the 4 July parade.

Class of 1975 float!

The rodeo queen and the Sheriff.

Smokey the Bear on the forest service truck. Good old small town parade!

I found the back way in. It was a good old, dumpy bar full of locals. We do find some really cool places sometimes.

One of the only bad things in Montana is that you can smoke in the bars.

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Katie had a new friend camping right next to us, Winnie.

Live Happy and Always Go Big.