Denver

Thursday:

We left Rock Springs a little before 9am. The sky is overcast but the roads are dry. At Laramie we took Hwy 287 toward Fort Collins. It looks like a town we'll have to return to. We arrived in Denver around 3pm. We contacted Don's niece Vicky and we all dropped by for an evening visit to Don's sister Virginia at the hospital. She is making progress to recovery from recent surgery. We were very low on gas so stopped by a Conoco station. It took nearly 30 minutes to fill the tank, about 2 gallons per minute. How slow can you go? We stopped by our neighborly Wal-Marts for the night in Wheatridge, West of Denver. We'll be hanging around for a couple of days.

Friday:


Don's nephew Larry and niece Vicky at Vicky's house in Arvada. Larry, from Cheyenne, is a recent retiree from the railroad, a novice still. We had dinner at the Boca de Beppo restaurant downtown. Nice food. Be careful not to over order as we did.

Saturday:

I made an attempt to repair the broken driverside windshield. The crack is 10-12 inches but below the driver's view. The crack was contaminated by all the rain so it isn't invisible. Hopefully it is stopped.

I went to Wal-Mart's photo center and made some prints from pictures of our get together. First time I've used the photo kiosk. Worked great, took about 10 minutes. Sure beats printing them on the printer.

Our afternoon was a visit to Hobby Town for a look around and dinner at a nearby Hofbrau where we all had fajitas. Odd menu there. Not like the cafeteria like hofbrau's I'm used to. More like a Colorado/Mexican food restaurant.

Sunday:

We lounged around all morning. We went over to the hospital about 1230. Later, nephew John, his wife Judy, daughter Angie and her son Kegan came over. Niece Vicky and her son Mike also came over. Lots of visitors for sister Virginia. We wore her out.

John and family headed back to Cheyenne, Vicky and Mike to there home and we headed downtown.

We walked the 16th Street Mall, shared a wonderful slice of taramuso cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory and then went over to Vicky's for dinner of homemade chili. (Yes, we are learning to eat desert first. Wisdom comes with age, or at least I hope so.) Vicky had also made a delightful blackberry cobbler. (Yes, two deserts. See what I said about wisdom.)

We were the only RV at Walmart's tonight. Everyone else must be smarter, so they left town.

Across Utah

We left West Wendover, the gambling side, after a nice buffet breakfast at the Rainbow Casino. We had parked by the casino rather than across the street in the truck and RV parking because it was more level, quieter, and because there weren't many other people using the lot. Business must be way off. We had about four neighbor RVs, all of which were on the road before we left about 9am.


This was supposed to be desert as we approached Salt Lake City. Crossing Utah was OK. Not much truck traffic heading eastbound for some reason.


We arrived in Salt Lake City a little before 11am. I put up the dish to check on the location of Zim's crafts. Lou has loved to visit there in past visits but it seems to be shrinking. It used to be the best source for crafts. They have a warehouse store a few miles away but we'll have to put that off for another visit. May it is bigger. We saw the piece of "art', above left, on our walk about Salt Lake City. This cow had a better idea of how to get over the moon. Fall is arriving in SLC. This side walk by Pioneer park is quite nice. Look at the end to see our RV and toad at the end of the sidewalk.
We headed out again just as it was starting to rain. It rained fairly hard all the way to Rock Springs where we stopped for the night. We spotted the Wal-Mart store so that's our current address. We should make Denver tomorrow evening.

Across Nevada

I updated the blog. We then shared a nice breakfast at the Nugget.
We were on the road about 10 am. The weather is really nice.


On the way East from Sparks, we saw many coyote that had been killed on the side of the road. There must be an awful lot of them here in the desert. While Lou was driving, one casually walked across the freeway which she almost hit. Evidently they are not too traffic savy.

We stopped a couple of times in Winnemucca and Elko to stretch the legs. Not too much exciting today.

We're staying the night in Wendover in the Rainbow Casino Lot.

Sparks Fly

Lou took Dawn home and had a couple of meetings. I did some minor cleanup of leaves scattered when I cleaned the gutters last night and then cleaned the downspouts. Enough! I pulled out the RV and hooked up the toad, made the final checks. When checking the oil I found the hood latch was broken so I repaired it.

The roofers were working on the neighbors, so that provided some entertainment and the usual morning chat with the neighbors. Before too long Lou had returned and it was lunch time. We walked to Mr Chau's fast Chinese food nearby. We got the low carb meal with vegetables deluxe, barbq ribs, five flavor chicken and hot and sour soup. very good. We can get one order and share and be stuffed.

We were on the road at 1:45 pm. We headed up Hwy 101 to Hwy 92 crossing the San Mateo bridge to Hwy 880. The Hwy 238 to Hwy 580. Traffic was good, though starting to pick up over by Livermore. We caught Hwy 205, then Hwy 5, and finally caught 80. We tried to stop for a break in Rocklin east of Sacramento. They have camping world and some other interesting shops that might have been interesting, but there was no place to park so we got back on the highway. Traffic was heavy passing through Sacramento but eased up after Rocklin. Weather was nice, overcast but nothing wet. We arrived in Reno about 6:45 pm. We parked on the street near the Circus-Circus. We walked around. Lots of places closed, just the big boys left. The new train underpass through town looks nice. We had dinner at Cal-Neva and then headed out. Didn't go far. We saw a nice parking lot at the Nugget with RV's stopped for the night so we added ours to the lot. It was 9pm. We went inside for a short visit losing 23 cents at the slots. Big spenders.

This is a nice place to stay, but may be to loud for some being set between Hwy 80 and the train tracks. We like the sound of trains, ourselves.

On OurMark

Where did the day go. Seems like We didn't do much today and the day is gone.


I did a little weeding behind the fountain area and pruned the boysenberry bushes as well. I washed the RV and filled the water and drained the holding tanks. We're packed and ready to go. Lou secured some of the stuff in the yard and cleaned up the RV.
It's overcast and sprinkled a bit in the afternoon. The roofers dropped by the neighbors and put plastic over their roof. It's not supposed to rain until Tuesday. I hope Hwy 80 stays open.
Finally, I cleaned our rain gutters.
I still have to clean up a bit of that debris while Lou has her doctor appointment, then we're off.

Dumpy Day

Most of my day was hauling to the dump. Two loads of dirt and one of plaster molds. All max plus loads. After the last load, both cars got a light rince and vacuumed. I then prepared the toad for travel, two bikes, two chairs, kites, etc. Tomorrow, I'll rince the RV. I started the water tank draining, tomorrow it gets filled and the holding tanks need dumping. Pack the clothes. Off we go.I'm not sure what caused the cars to be so dusty, the dump visits or the stripping of the roof off the neighbors house. In any case, it's usually more difficult to wash on the road so we'll start out clean.

Lou and Dawn have done the shopping and stocked the RV for Lou and I and the house for Dawn.


Today, Lou installed a plastic door to her pottery shed. It's always just been open but now has a lot more molds stored in it, as if filling the garage with molds weren't enough. She also wrapped up some that are still outside on the deck. Dawn was having "fun" studying.

Today was overcast all day. Nice weather for outside work but hopefully not a hint of things to come too soon. We want to get to Cheyenne or Denver as needed before any storms, and then get out, as well.

Another Diversion

Thursday:

Well, I thought I'd just be cleaning up and getting ready to go, but, of course, another diversion arose. Before we left on our summer trip, I installed a drain pipe across the front yard. At the same time, I broke out some concrete (an old driveway) in the backyard. I finished the front but we had to depart on our adventure and I didn't want to leave a hazard so I patched the rear yard up by setting some bricks in sand. Yesterday, I decided to finish that before we head out this time. The day was spent digging the trench, about 15 feet to receive a 4" drain pipe and some rock for a french drain. Fortunately, since it's an extension at the end, It only needed to be 18" deep. Unfortunately, it still was in our treacherous clay. Most of the day was just digging but I did get the pipe and rock in before I quite for the day.

Friday:

I got up early today, just like back in those horrible days of a job. I dashed off to my old workplace to see a coworker who will be retiring soon. His luncheon will be as we are away so I wanted to see him before I left. The workplace looks the same. It was nice to see everyone else as well.

Since I was in San Jose, I went by Dawn's apartment for some chores. I swept up the remains of the tree trimming debris in the street that was left after the garbage company picked it up. Even though it was mostly just tiny pieces of cedar leaves, it made a big pile. I cleaned up the side yard and added that to the pile. I also cleaned the rain gutters and changed the furnace filter as well. I then went by Sheldon's Hobbies for a new higher voltage battery for the Slo-V RC plane. Should give it more umph.


On the way home, I picked up 16 bags of sand. That kind of fills the Volvo. When I got home, I backfilled the drain trench and reset the bricks. I also added a few more bricks to eliminate a muddy spot nearby. Sand all gone. Project done, except, that the junk dirt pile is much bigger. Tomorrow, that pile, about a yard of bad clay dirt, goes to the dump with a few other items. Should take at least two loads. If I'm lucky, and I finish, that leaves Sunday to pack.

It's going to be nice to relax soon.

Lou and Dawn have been shopping and banking in prep for our departure. Dawn will be stocked up with the heavy items so she only needs to grab a few items when she goes to the market.