Nice stay in Reno 5-21

Yesterday started with a lovely visit and coffee with a good friend. Then we loaded our overnight stuff in the truck, turned off everything in the trailer and took off. We stopped at the new Blue Goose art gallery here in Chester our friends have opened to see it for the first time all finished. Deb was there so it was great seeing her for a bit.

The drive to Reno was nothing new. No big changes in Susanville that we could see. Everything is extremely green and there is quite a lot of snow on the tops of the mountains still. We were surprised that Honey Lake was still dry.

Here is Lou and Vickie in their room, I didn't have the camera with me when we hooked up with Charlie and Sharon.

We were going to the El Dorado for one of their show and room packages and meeting two other couples that have been life-long friends. For some strange reason we all got bumped up to Spa suites...wowee, very nice! We even had freshly cleaned carpet...we had to wait to go up to our room because it was drying. I couldn't wait for the show to be over so I could get in that huge jetted tub!!! We had a wonderful dinner at the Buffet and the show was great. We made our donations at the casino and retired to our la-ti-da room. I enjoyed the heck out of that tub...over six months since a soak...lovely. The king size bed was really comfortable and the whole room was big enough we could have parked our trailer in it with room left over!

Today we met our friends for breakfast...Larry passed on eating, he was still full from dinner and then we headed for Fallon. It was really windy in NV today and it was warmer in Fallon than Reno...the wind in Reno was blowing off the snow covered mountains. We dug into our storage for what we needed and put some stuff in there from here and off we went back here to Chester.

It was getting cloudier the closer we got and after coming out of Buffalo Chips Pizza in Westwood where Larry always has to go to get his Beefy Cheese sandwich the clouds were huge and black. As we left Westwood it started snowing...a big, SARCASTIC wahoo! It was cold, windy and snowing...not what one wants to see when residing in an aluminum box...ha ha ha, some people don't care...we don't like it at all. Not to mention we were really hoping for some nice weather...it is almost the end of May for goodness sakes! The lake looked like an ocean with the angry waves, and the snowy cold made steam rise off the road and lake. Oh well, just glad we will be moving on soon. Larry would have had us hooked up and down the road if it wasn't for my workshop...ha ha ha.

Back in Chester 5-19

Had a nice travel day. I got the slideouts pulled in before the rain started which we prefer to pulling them in dripping wet or as has happened a few times with snow on them. We hit the road about 9 from Ukiah...took highway 20 to 5 north to 36 east from Red Bluff to Chester. It was 229 miles from there to here in the center of Chester. It rained most of the way and was very windy.

We arrived here at 2...it took us forever to get checked in and then parked...the lady had forgotten to write us down when Larry called a couple of weeks ago to reserve a spot and put someone else in the site that would have worked for us better. Oh well, what can you do except make it work. The RV park is right next to my friends very nice store...great fun stuff to look at and Goddess hugs...woo hoo.

This is one of the reasons I don't miss living in the mountains any more...mid May and the daffodils are just coming up and it still freezes...made me crazy to have my spring flowers snowed on. I learned early on not to plant any tender plants until after Father's Day.

So anyhow...after we got ourselves all set up and everything the way we like it we went out to see friends of ours for a couple of hours. No blog tomorrow, we will be busy!

Work day 5-18

Today was a reorganizing and maintenance day. Tomorrow is a travel day to Chester. It will be our first time staying there with the trailer since we hit the road over 6 years ago. It will be a busy week. Thursday we head to Reno to hook up with friends and see a live show and spend the night. On Friday we'll go on to Fallon to get some stuff out of storage and put some stuff from the trailer in. Saturday and Sunday I will be taking a watercolor workshop and on Monday I am having a massage with my favorite massage therapist. While I am in my workshop Larry will be doing his own thing.

This photo is one I took a couple of days ago, which I cropped and then used a paint effect on...pretty.

Rainy Day 5-17

Today it was back to rain...it has been a very wet spring.

We did shopping today...went to a cute little new age/spiritual shop for a friends birthday gift, then discovered a wonderful yarn shop...beautiful materials, I'll be back there in the future....then went to my favorite used book store to turn in some books and pick out a couple more. Then it was on to Walmart for stuff, to the Natural Food co-op, to Safeway for groceries and then back home...to put it all away. Had to be done, we will be hitting the road on Wednesday for little old remote Chester and we'll be real busy the first four days or so of the week we'll be there. We had a lovely dinner at the kids tonight and then back home to watch Dancing with the Stars.

Pictures of smiley Connor and look at how lanky Ian is getting....and then that sexy man of mine, um, um, uummmm!

Ohhh, and had a great phone call from a long ago childhood friend...who I haven't seen since I was 3 or 4...very fun! We connected on facebook, way cool, she recognized my picture...nice to know that I haven't aged so much that I'm unrecognizable. Which reminds me I owe her a photo...gotta run.

Hunting Ancestors 5-16

Friday we spent the day in Napa with Larry’s Mom Carol. She spent her early years in Napa and many of Carol’s Uncles and Aunts, her Parents and Grandparents were natives of the Napa area and are interred or buried there. Other than her Dad all are at the Tulocay Cemetery. So we spent a few hours there…Larry had his list of names and the people in the office went through the records and told him where to find everyone.

Carol had memories of most of the deceased and while she shared those with Larry I was off taking pictures of the stunning landscape. Huge old oaks and stunning roses were everywhere with azaleas and iris sprinkled around. After we tracked down “everyone” and there were several without headstones so with the good records in the office we knew where they were, but it is odd the lack of a visual marker…we drove around Napa to Carol’s childhood homes. One was in the downtown area, right on the fringe of the revitalized area so it seemed lucky that it was still standing, because of course much had changed in 65 or so years. We took pictures of all the markers and homes, but I won't bore you with all those pictures.

It was a long day, but good for Larry’s research and having Mom along helped a lot, plus she enjoyed seeing all her old haunts…it is a wonder she and her sister survived…today’s parents would cringe at the freedoms and antics two young girls had in their single digit years.

Saturday we spent with Andrea’s family, Will grilled hamburgers and Ian spent the night with us…this afternoon Larry’s Mom came by for a computer lesson…we had a very nice weekend.

This last is Connor during his dinner.

In Ukiah

We had a nice drive south on 101 from Scotia to Ukiah. We love love love the redwoods...the place we spent our honeymoon over 32 years ago is still there.

As we were getting set up I looked out the window and saw a man pushing a stroller through and then I recognized the man! It was Will, our son-in-law with cutie Connor. So Connor sat inside while I finished getting stuff done and he looked around and jabbered away. He sits up on his own now and it won't be long before he is crawling. He is really great at entertaining himself for long periods already.

We will be here in Ukiah for a week.

Back in Nor Cal 5-11

Today we pulled out of Sutherlin around 9:15. It was cloudy but it didn't rain on us. After getting into California and going through the mountain we came out into sunshine. The coast mountains had snow on them again...in May. The coast was really windy and the ocean had white caps with big angry waves pounding the coast and churning up the bottom. We didn't linger outside and I didn't get a lot of pictures...traveling south we were into the sun too much.

We are just outside of Scotia at the RV park we stayed at last fall when we were through here. Just another nice day of travel.

Happy Mother's Day 5-9

Today we took a walk around the hood, had breakfast and then we did laundry. The rest of the afternoon we spent over at Aunt Millie and Uncle Marty's place. It being Mother's Day my cousin Cindy was there and had brought dinner! Good timing on our part...smile! She had made a large spaghetti casserole and garlic bread...being descended from Aunt Millie she had enough for two families of lumberjacks so us being crashers was no problem.

In the past week so many more of their azalea plants had burst into bloom and the clematis...though Uncle Marty...there is a bug munching holes into some of the clematis plants back there. Larry nailed down some more family history from my Aunt while we were there too. We had a DQ Moo-latte on the way home for dessert...yummy!

Still in Sutherlin 5-8

We are still hanging out here in Sutherlin...we'll be heading south on Tuesday and getting to Ukiah on Wednesday for a week. I finished another knit throw tonight and Larry is busy working on his genealogy research. We take a few walks enjoying the nature here in the park...jack rabbits, deer, quail, turkeys and birds. The park is pretty quiet here, the snowbirds haven't really landed yet.

These pictures are of the crabapple trees in Albany just after we got there a few weeks ago.

Happy Whatever Day 5-5

Not doing much but I want to share these cuties...Connor, Ian and Seth. Seth is starting to be a little scary...he is starting to pose when he sees the camera like Cousins Darcy and Lindsay...there is apparently a camera posing gene in the DNA somewhere.

Its cold and rainy here in Oregon with splashes of sunshine.

Hello from Sutherlin 5-3

I am being a lazy blogger again. We had Seth overnight on Friday...our last night in Albany...he slept through most of our preparations to pull out Saturday morning (he gets that from his Dad, ha ha).

We drove only a hundred miles and two hours to our favorite RV park in Sutherlin. The sites are spacious and the RV park is quiet...far from the highway, no airport nearby and very little train traffic way off in the distance. We decided to stay a few days and enjoy the quiet.

My Aunt Millie and Uncle Marty live near here so we went over yesterday and had a nice visit and I took pictures of their single tulip tree flower and the biggest, oldest dogwood tree I have seen. The flowers are 3 to 4 inches across...this one flower was low enough for me to get its portrait. They have many, many azaleas and rhododendrons too, but only a few were in bloom yet.

Thanks again you guys for the great visit and pizza!