Saturday, May 30, 2009


The total was 7,465 miles in COZY and about 600 miles in the Jeep for a total of around 8,000 miles. We averaged $2.26 per gallon of Diesel or 35 cents per mile which is much better than we budgeted. Except for the office furniture I destroyed we did not have any unexpected expenses or break down. All in All it was a perfect vacation and we are already discussing our next excursion which will most likely be a trip to Fairbanks Alaska in a year or maybe two.
We are home now and everything seems to be in good shape. We owe a great thanks to Brian for maintaining the pasture, and taking care of the horses while we were gone.
Special thanks to our boss Rob for allowing us to be gone for a whole month, this has been a really great vacation and we couldn't have done it any other way.

Friday, May 29, 2009


We spend the last couple of days of our vacation at Pearl's sister's (Helen) home in Alsea Oregon. Helen has a home on the Alsea River, and it is beautiful. They have deer come to their home almost every night and they feed them sliced apples.































We bar-b-q'ed some steaks and Helen and Don had some Elk steaks that Don had shot last winter, so we threw a couple of the Elk Steaks on the bar-b-q and they were great. I never dreamed Elk was so good. I commented the deer Helen was feeding would fit in the freezer pretty well and almost got threw out of the house. (My Bad)










we took highway 87 from just above Redding to Susanville to hit 395 into Reno. We spent the night on the side of the highway in the forest in some kind of logging area for our final night. This was a really nice drive but there were so many deer on the road and on the side of the road we decided we needed to pull over before we hit one. This picture was taken at about 8:30 at night. We took off at 6:00 Friday morning and was back in Reno before noon on Friday.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009



Here is a picture of the Church Lance Preaches at. He has really made some big changes and his congregation has grown substantially.



He now has services on Saturday night, Sunday morning and Sunday evenings.



We parked COZY in the parking lot in the back of the church and headed over to Lances to visit.














After dinner we all headed to the local ice cream parlor for some delecious ice crea.







The kids all spend lots of hours on the trampoline. They even got Pearl and I on it. It was much harder than I remember from my childhood days.











Joey was a little dissapointed when he saw all the Tator Tots were gone.



















The kids all wanted to see COZY so we stopped by the church after Ice Cream.






The living room in COZY wasn't exactly designed for 9 people.















Tuesday, May 26, 2009



It's 5:30am Tuesday morning and we are getting ready to take off for Longview, Washington to visit with Lance, Lisa and the grandkids.

It's only 200 miles so we will probably stop somewhere and have breakfast and arrive by Noon.

Looking forward to seeing how tall all the kids are getting, it's been almost a year since we have seen them last so I am sure everyone has grown an inch or two.

Monday, May 25, 2009



We left Yellowstone about 6:00 this morning. We have just arrived at Yakima Washington and have decided to spend the night at a Rest Area here.
Pearl made some spaghetti and meatballs a couple of days ago (m-m-m good) and while she was at it she made some Stuffed Bell Peppers and today around 4:00 pm she put them into the crock pot to cook and it is now 7:45 and we are fixing to have dinner. Stuffed Bell Peppers, mashed potatoes, corn. Pretty darn good fixings for a rest area.
Dinner is ready so I have to go.
We will meet Lance at his church tomorrow around noon. He said we can park the bus at his church and have electricity and a level space. It is only about 200 miles to his church (we drove 700 today) so we should be right on time.


Friday, May 22, 2009



We are in Yellowstone National Park, and will be here until Monday. There is no internet, cell phone or TV here so we will kind of be isolated for a few days.

In driving around the park we found an area that has a weak but workable signal for our internet and phone. It is about 45 miles from our camp so I will only be stopping by once or twice more before we head out Monday.

This means I will be a day or two behind on work email, but will check in every chance I get.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009


We almost made it to Billings Montana and decided to call it a day.

Should be an easy day tomorrow to get to Yellowstone and hopefully find a nice camping spot inside the park and relax for 3 or 4 days.