Utah Rocks!

We left Las Vegas Saturday morning for Zion River Resort in Virgin, UT, just outside Zion National Park. We will spend the next two weeks traveling through Zion to Bryce Canyon and then Capitol Reef NPs along with 10-12 other coaches as part of the Hop, Skip, and Jump Rally of the RV Forum. We spent the afternoon and evening catching up- with old friends and meeting new ones.At the urging of one of our friends five of us spent four hours Sunday hiking up to Angel's Landing, an extremely strenuous climb.
After one and a half hours of climbing we reached the final assault that ends with a chain assisted scramble up a narrow rock ledge to the top.
When you crawl out to the edge you are looking down 1400 feet to the valley floor below.The view from Angel's Landing is spectacular but the climb will be classified as once is enough!We earned the hats and shirts we purchased at the visitor's center.

On The Road Again

After almost five months of being parked at Happy Trails, interrupted by a couple of short trips, we are back on the road for the next six months. Our general plan is to spend the next six weeks or so in Utah and Colorado Rockies before heading back to the Midwest for a family gathering on Wisconsin and Drs appointments for Sue. In August we meet Seattle friends in Sault Ste Marie and head to New England and down the East Coast to Florida and Jeff's folks.We spent a couple of days in Las Vegas sightseeing the new hotels (and eating!) before heading to Zion NP to meet up with 20 friends from the RV Forum to start a two week tour of southern Utah's National Parks.Our route took us over Hover Dam after a short inspection of the m/h by Homeland Security who checks each vehicle that drives over the dam. A new bridge over the Colorado River is being constructed to detour traffic away for security reasons.
The new hotels are really lavish and we spent two afternoons checking out three or four of them. Everything from the Eiffel Tower to Flamingos greet you when you come on off the street. We don't gamble but enjoy the City of Lights anyway.

Hawaii

Another way to break up the winter is a flight to Honolulu and its balmy weather in February! We see our Hawaii gang about twice a year so the girls seem to be really growing every time we get together!
We spent a week with our kids including babysitting, trips to the zoo. and a pre-school field trip for Jeff and Emily where he was the only grandpa there.

A New Winter Home

We are spending our 3rd winter in Surprise at Happy Trails RV Resort and have decided to buy a RV lot here. A lot across the street from the lot we have rented for the past two years from friend and fellow RVer Russ Mahoney has become available. It is on the golf course and we made an offer that was accepted.
Having a casita equipped with restroom, washer/dryer, sink and dishwasher plus room to store what we are accumulating has made this year a comfortable one. Happy Trails is a 55+ RV resort with golf course, three pools, and many activities that we are involved in.
We have talked to several contractors and will probably decide to build an Arizona room next year that will have a bedroom and kitchen. That will mean having a place to bring our possessions that have been in storage and an alternative to living in the motorhome over the winter as we have for the past four years.

Back to Quartzsite

An annual tradition for us is to join the RV Forum in the desert just south of Quartzsite, AZ for a week in late January. QZ hosts a combined rock show and REV rally the last full week of January that attracts thousands of RVs to the desert of SW Arizona.
The Forum always gets involved in new upgrades to our equipped such as our satellite antenna. With all week to shop, visit, and help out there is never a shortage of willing hands! The week helps break up the winter months in Arizona.

From Cape Cod to Florida to Arizona

This is really playing catch up but it has been a wild 3 months.! After traveling down the east coast and meeting up in Altlanta, after Sue visited our daughter Jami and family in Hawaii, we spent six weeks in Florida with Jeff's folks.

A fast trip to Arizona got us there in time to travel back to Chicago for a very cold but nice Christmas with daughter Laurie and her family.

We are back at Happy Trails for New Years and will be spending the winter here in the southwest.

Cape Cod

After all the years of traveling to Maine for Cousins family functions we finally made it down to the Cape. We had a short 50 minute drive to Dennisport from Plymouth and were settled in by 1:00PM.
We headed up the Cape from Waltham to Provincetown which encompasses the entire Cape Cod National Seashore. The visitor's center at mid Cape has a beautiful presentation that explains the ever changing landscape and ecosystem of the beaches, ponds, and salt marshes. It is hard to grasp that eventually the entire Cape will disappear under the relentless pounding of the winter storms off the Atlantic.We did not give the upper Cape the time it deserves so after several detours on the drive up the Seashore we had little time to spend in Provincetown, a whaling center two hundred years ago and now a summer haven of artists and tourists. The community has retained its 18th century look with very narrow streets and alleys and weathered buildings.
The next day was a trip to Hyannis to visit the JFK Museum and memorial and see how the upper crust enjoys summers on the Cape. Jeff managed to brush the curb with a tire pressure sensor that snapped the tire stem off so we had lunch waiting for our road service show up and change the flat that resulted. An hour at the local Honda dealer installed a new TPMS sensor that is attached to the stem and we were set.
Our last full day was a chance to travel by Ferry out to Nantucket Island and spend four hours touring the very busy summer resort before the 1:50 minute ferry back to Hyannis. We took a tour around the Island to get a little background on Nantucket and Siasconset, the fishing village on the SE side f the island that has become a haven for the New York artistic set.The unusual building design in Siasconset include the trellised roofs. The trellis prevents the roots of the vines to penetrate the shingles and damage the underlying roof. Some of the buildings were covered by beautiful vines to the peaks of the roof.The ferry ride was quite violent on the open water because of high winds so we stayed outside on the rear deck. We returned to Hyannis around 6:00PM and headed back to the m/h.

The next day we drove up to Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, Mass 30 miles south of Logan Airport to be as close as possible for Sue's early departure Thursday for Honolulu. After dropping her off and making sure the flight left on time Jeff spent a couple of hours in downtown Boston around Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall having breakfast and playing tourist.