Quincy, CA. to Schulenberg, Texas November 2014

November was a travel month for us. We left Quincy October 30th and headed for Las Vegas to look at a couple of parks we were thinking about working at. Turns out we decided to quit thinking about them. We then continued on our journey to our new job. We stopped in Williams, Arizona and decided to take the Grand Canyon R.R. to the Grand Canyon.  

We rode coach due to the fact it was the cheapest. You have to remember that I'm Dutch. It was a nice trip up to to the canyon and it took us right up to the south rim which was just a short walk from the station. If you've never been to the Grand Canyon you're missing a wonderful sight. Pictures just don't do it justice...it's one of those places you have to see for yourself.

We had about three to four hours before the train headed back to Williams. We had time to walk along the rim and marvel at the views.With the sun and clouds changing the look of the canyon by the minute it was just beautiful. If you're ever in the area of the Grand Canyon, take the time to visit; it is an experience you will never forget.

These are just four of the 127 pictures I took and as I said, the pictures are nice but you really need to see it in person to really appreciate it.

I was able to get Holly to walk out on the point for this picture. Braver then me but she kept saying "hurry up and take it". This is one of my favorite shots . As usual all good things come to an end, so it was back on the train and back to the campground. The next morning we were on the road to Elephant Butte State Park to visit old friends. This is the first park we spent a whole winter at and wanted to stop and see how things looked.

We took the kids to the beach at EBSP and let them run. They had a blast. Brutus was with us when we volunteered there and he showed Ruby around. We spent three nights there and they both went to the beach a couple of times  and enjoyed being able to run and run. We went out to eat a couple of times with friends and had a great time ourselves.

We arrived at Schulenburg RV Park on November 7. Turns out they were not expecting us for another week so we left the motor home there and drove home for a few days and then drove back to Texas. This is a real nice park; the owners are great. The other work campers are also nice and have been very helpful in getting us acclimated. 

We have a nice site although a little narrow, and there's a DQ right next door. We work two days and have six off so we will have time to explore and see some new sights. We have visited some of the other towns around here and are getting a feeling for the area. That's it, next month we will start exploring and sharing it with "ya'll".  See ya next month.

Quincy Ca. October 2014

 I know I'm late but I've been busy. This is the diner in Truckee that was on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We had lunch there and it was very good.  Holly had the lobster mac and cheese. Nice little town to visit. It was on the way to Lake Tahoe and has some nice little shops.

 We went to a rodeo with our fellow work campers and had a yahoo great time. Some of those guys are just plain nuts. Those bulls and bucking broncos are wild.They also had calf roping and barrel racing. I don't think I would even try barrel racing, I'd probably fall of the horse and land on one of the barrels.

This is Nancy, Jeff and Holly enjoying the rodeo. Nancy and Jeff were our partners in crime. They worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We worked on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We all really worked hard but I think we worked a little harder so they would have it a little easier (they are much older than us).

Holly, Eric (Eric is a full time worker there) and I were called on to judge a pumpkin carving contest that one of the RV rallys had. This is the winner. It wasn't an easy job but we were willing to take bribes.

We took one day and drove around Lake Tahoe. This is a shot of the lake from one of the pull outs. There are some really expensive looking homes around there. No, that's not one of them below. We drove by this barn several times and I finally stopped and took this picture, I kind of like it so I thought I would share it.

 Brutus and Ruby finally decided it was easier to get along and have worked out most of their problems. Brutus is still his own dog and Ruby thinks people were put on this planet to scratch her back and belly.

We took a drive up to Donner Pass just before we left. This is Donner Lake which looks a lot like Lake Tahoe. They had snow up in the pass a couple of days before we were there and it was starting to stay around.

Donner Pass is up around 7500 feet and winter was starting to arrive.
Ok here comes the excuse for being so late with this blog. Two days before we were schedule to leave they had a winter storm warning so the owners said we should leave two days early to beat the storm (that never came). 

We do thank Wes and Diane for being concerned for us. So we have been on the road heading to Texas. Once we arrived we found out they didn't expect us for another week so we left the coach jumped in the Jeep and headed home for a few days. That's all I have for now. I'll try and be on time for November. Bye for now.

Quincy, CA. September 2014

Holly's sister drove down for one last visit so we all went exploring. We went to Subway Tunnel which is an old lava tube. As you can see, it was a ways down to get into it. It was a good thing we were told to bring flashlights as it's not lighted. It's open on both ends but the sunlight doesn't go too far into it.

I took this picture with the flash. Now close your eyes...that's how it looked without the flash. There were places where I had to duck while walking due to the low ceiling and other places where it was 15 feet high. Nice little side trip, especially since none of us have ever seen a lava tube. 

Further north we came to Burney State Park where there is Burney Falls. We had brought a picnic lunch and had the perfect day for our trip. The falls are 22 feet high and there is 100 million gallons of water that goes over the falls every day. There's a trail that goes down to the bottom of the falls and follows the river to Lake Britton.

This is the river that flows through the canyon and down to the lake. The water temperature is between 42 and 48 degrees...not real nice for swimming but fishing is good.

We followed the trail along the river for a little ways and then crossed over and went back up the canyon to the top of the falls. The canyon walk was nice; it was going back up that wore us out. Nothing fancy here...just a dirt trail to the top. This is Holly and Deb on the bridge over the river. The smiles were gone by the time we got to the top.

After Deb left for home Holly and I went to a wildlife park. They take care of abandoned and injured animals. If the animal is injured and can be released after healing they return it to the wild; if not they keep it at the park. They also have animals that need special care that the owners could not provide. They have wolves, coyotes, cheetahs, bears, mountain lions

and several others, not all native to the area. The nice thing is every animal has a little story about how they came to be at the park posted by their habitat. It was really interesting to read all the different stories.

We're looking out over Lake Tahoe in this picture. It was a beautiful day though quite windy. There were even white caps on the lake. We were surprised at how large the lake was. It is 22 miles long and 12 miles wide. There's even a Coast Guard Station there. What rough duty that must be.

This is just me relaxing after a hard 3 hours at work. That's the shop and garage where the owner keeps his other car (a black Corvette). I've offered to take it out for a spin every now and then just to keep everything oiled and running well but we all know his answer to that (can't say I blame him, knowing me).

This is a Mountain Blue Jay, not to be confused with a Steller's Jay which is also a type of blue jay which we have plenty of here at the park.

Yes that's right...we found another train museum. This is the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. They had some very nice restored equipment and nice displays.

This is a self-propelled passenger car. It will carry 72 passengers and was used around the Lake Tahoe and Truckee area. It's  a cross between a bus and trolly on steroids. They have done a great job of restoring it as you can see in these two pictures and they do give rides on it around the grounds.

That's all for now. Time to start thinking about pulling this train back out on the main line. We leave the 1st of November for Schulenburg RV Park in Schulenburg Texas. That will be our winter home. We are going to try and sneak home some time this winter for a week but until then we will see ya all down the line. Toot- Toot.

Quincy CA. August 2014

Well here it is the end of August and we are still in Quincy. Normally we would be getting ready to leave and go to our winter hide out but we told the park's owners we would stay until the end of October. This month has been a little slow for us but we have done a few things. Lassen Volcanic National Park had  a night program and it was fun.

We were able to look through some telescopes at the moon when we first arrived and they had a program about the Earth by a researcher from NASA, it was very interesting. Then after it got dark they had a telescope hooked up to a large TV and they showed us different star formations.

The county fair was in town and since we are right next to the fair grounds we did visit a couple of times. They had a medicine show with the peddler and his snake oil.  Why anyone would want to oil a snake I'll never know (sorry, just had to).

They also had pig races. There were four heats and then the main feature race. The first day we went we were in the cheering section for Bob for the big race. At the starting bell Bob was out of the gate like a rocket, in the lead around turns one and two and pulled up five feet from the finish line and came in last. I think he was paid off.

Meet Bob, day two. Yep in Bob's cheering section again.  Out of the gate like a rocket in the lead around turns one and two and across the finish line two pig lengths ahead of everyone else. When I found out we were in his cheering section again I went and had a little talk with him... something about a ham dinner later may have helped.

They also had a rodeo on Saturday evening. There were bull riders, bareback and saddle bronc riders, barrel races and a clown. The bull riders are crazy. the bronc riders with and without saddles are just nuts and the clown needs to look for another occupation. Just not as funny as he thought he was.

This one here looks like some of the old ladies we see going over the speed bumps at Wal-mart.

This one just need new shocks.

We took a couple of days and stayed in Reno. We did a little shopping went to a couple of buffets, of course they were in casinos so we did play a little and just relaxed from our hard jobs. That's it for now. I guess I'll just shove all of my chips in and wait for the flop and see what next month brings, See ya.

Quincy CA. July 2014

Last month I said I would tell you about the High Sierra Music Festival but first I need to tell you about where we are in Quincy consisting of about 5,500 people.  You can add an additional 10,000 when the festival is in full swing. The campground is about 300 yards from the county fairgrounds where the festival is held. We have county land on three sides of us and as you can see in the first two pictures, it is an open area with trees. The festival started the afternoon of July 3rd. Starting in the morning the festival goers are allowed to camp in the area around the fairgrounds which turns into tent city in about three hours. The county has gone thru and marked off walking lanes prior to this  because once they start setting up tents, it's wall to wall as
you can see in the next two pictures. Some of these
people just come and set up a little pop-up shelter to sleep
in for four days and others set up a home that

consist of a large tent, patio, furniture and a wet bar. Of course their bars would put any home bar to shame. There's no lack of alcohol here. There is no electric or water so they have to bring everything in with them.

It was amazing that with this many people in this small area that there weren't any real problem or noise. They bring in portable fencing and provide security and everyone just has a good time. There are also many porta-potties brought in. I hate to think what those were like after four days.

At the fairgrounds they have three stages set up and the music starts at 11 AM and goes until late at night. The first night it was after 2 AM. They have bands from all over but none we have heard of. The music ranged from blue grass to rock and head banger stuff. The people attending were dressed in everything from tie-dye to feather boas to wedding dresses (saw two guys with these). Even saw a girl wearing two large band aids for a top. No I didn't stare (Holly was with me) but I do know that they weren't Sponge Bob Square Pants band aids!

There were a lot of food venders and merchandise for sale.  The owners of the park bought all of the volunteers a one-day pass so we could go and enjoy the festival. Holly and I went on Saturday and had lunch and walked around for a little while but it was so hot we decided to head back home and go back later when it cooled off.  After all was said and done, everyone had a good time, the town of Quincy returned to normal, and we enjoyed the experience.

We took a day trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park which is about two hours north of us. It has one of the largest domed volcanoes around. There are some areas that have boiling mud pits and you do smell the sulfur.  It takes about an hour to just drive thru the park and the road is extremely curvy with switch backs and you get up over 8000 feet.  

We took the dogs along and Holly packed a lunch. We took our time and enjoyed the scenery and had a nice lunch by one of the many lakes in the area.

There were waterfalls and streams throughout the park. The lakes were just beautiful. We had a very nice day trip and the dogs always love it when we take them along.

Holly has her bird bath, bird feeder and humming

bird feeder set up out back of the motor home. Here are a couple of our regular visitors. So interesting to sit out side and watch these little birds feed.

Well, that's all for now. Guess I'll hum a little tune and fly out of here. See you next month.