October 2012

 We saw we conquered and we found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so we left. That's right, we were on the road again. We spent a great summer on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. We traveled, saw the oceans and the mountains. The rain forest and the rivers. We were able to visit with family and friends. We put over 6000 miles on the Jeep and had a great time. We meet Captain Robbie Knievel. He stayed at the park while he was doing a promotion at a local casino. He is a very nice person even though we couldn't get him to jump over the pond.

Bad Lands National Park at sunrise.

 We loaded up the rolling condo and headed home...or so we thought. After twenty minutes on the road and the first big hill, the engine started missing. I was not happy. The next big hill produced the same problems. The first large town was one hour away so I took it easy until we made it to Silverdale where I could buy some spark plugs and plug wires. We drove over to the shopping mall and Holly went shopping while I changed the plugs and wires. Three hours later we were back on the road. We drove over the Cascade Mountains and we made it to the east side of Washington that day (Spokane Valley).

 The next morning found us up and on our way by the time the sun broke over the top of Wal-Mart. Another long day and more mountains. The mountains were hazy with smoke because of all of the forest fires out west. Another long day but the coach was running fine and that made me happy. We stopped for the night and another early start in the morning. We did find that there is not a Wal-Mart campground in every town. We had to spend $8 to spend one night at Badlands National Park. We rose early and so as not to disturb the other campers, we drove to an overlook, started the generator and watched the sunrise with our coffee.

 It was five long days on the road but we made it home. Grandma was able to finally hold our new grandson (Grandpa too). So darn cute. We spent three weeks at home. We took all of the kids to dinner. Had a chance to see Grayson and Heidi bowl. Holly was able to see her friends and I was able to fix a couple of things around the house and get down to the train club. Changed the oil on the motor home made a few simple repairs and took it easy and enjoyed being home. It took about three days but we finally were able to get Holly to give Jason back to Beckie and (ya that's right) we were back on the road again. We had a job offer to be host at the Dickerson Driveway Campground and it was tempting but we were already committed so we had to turn them down.  We headed out and things went fine until we got to Oklahoma and we found out where the wind comes from. We had a few problems on the way but solved all but the cracked windshield on the motorhome. We'll take care of that when we get back home.

Now for the ones who didn't know where we are spending our winter, look right. That's right... one more time. We had job offers in Texas and California but it just felt right to go back to New Mexico. We are here, getting settled in and starting to work. Can't wait to find out what we missed the first time around. See you all next month when there should be more to write about.