One Incredible Day!

Days like this don't come around that often!  And so often, you just can't plan them.  This day began with a little bit of a plan. We originally were not going to stay in Jackson Hole so long but when I looked at the calendar I realized that my sister and her husband were going to celebrate 54 years of marriage on the 26th so of course we had to stay to help them celebrate.  And of course, we celebrated even more than they did!

We started the day early with a Lion's Club breakfast at the Jackson County Fair.  Kirby and I have not eaten "white things" in over a year but darn, we fell off the wagon and had pancakes!  We ate our breakfast outdoors in the cool morning air waiting for the Horse Show to begin.  Two of their granddaughters were to be in the ring competing.  Rachel, who is 17, and Megan who is 12 both competed in Horsemanship.  I was so excited to watch them.  This city girl has never been involved with horses and I don't know much about them.

This is Rachel who took a 2nd in her class.

 

 

 

This is Megan and she took Best In Class.

Congratulations to you both!  You made me so proud and gave me a wonderful, wonderful day!

Now doesn't that sound like just the best day?  It was, but it wasn't over.  My nephew Flip and his wife, Kelley (the girls parents of course) invited us on a float trip on the the Snake River.  I opted for the "Green" water trip verses the "White" water.  I have had that White Water excitement and just wanted to enjoy the day, the river and my family.  My sister and her husband decided to pass and so we would see them again later in the day.

 First thing that happened was a "Shoe Overboard" exercise.  We dropped Megan on the shore and she managed to retrieve it, we got her back in the boat and set off again.

 It was a perfect afternoon.  Not too hot, not too cold and no wind.  Flip was the perfect handler/captain/skipper - whatever the person with the oars is called.  He certainly knew his business and there were no frightening moments!

Once they told us that we could beach the boat and walk up the hill to a store for cold drinks we just had to do it because, as Kirby said, we had never done that before!  The walk was short, the store had all kinds of choices and we all got something cold and I ATE ICE CREAM!  Oh, my but it was good!

The river ride took 2 or 3 hours - I don't remember because time was standing still.  It was just the BEST!

We went home and got out the game of Apples to Apples and sat on the back porch and played a game or two and next thing we knew it was time for dinner.  Just down the road was a place called The Bird.  It was packed since it was a Saturday night during Fair Week but we had a great time anyway celebrating Joan and Red's 54th!! Management gave us each a Popsicle to celebrate with.  I liked that much better than cake!

Busy at Lake Hartwell

My but this has been a busy week and so fun!  We enjoyed a lot of family time with my daughter and her family and also with my sister and her husband who visited from Georgia.

Dave and Patti visited from north Georgia

Casey and his girlfriend, Hannah

 On Friday, my grandson, Casey graduated from Clemson University.  Kirby and I chose not to attend the actual graduation but we did help everyone celebrate.  My daughter and her husband had rented a large house on Lake Hartwell just 10 minutes from our campsite – it was perfect!  So we were close and got to enjoy the whole family – eating cake and celebrating.  I really am so proud of Casey and his accomplishments.  He graduated from the Honors College also which means that he had to work extra hard to get his excellent grades while being in a fraternity and playing big time which of course is what you are supposed to do in college.

We have enjoyed being here at Lake Hartwell State Park.  It is so beautiful and peaceful.  Of course it won’t be this way much longer as summer comes and the place fills up. 

I will leave you with some of my photos to make you envious!

Charleston Visit

We haven't stopped since we got here!  We continue to stay in the parking lot and that is working out really well.  The weekend was awesome as it was so quiet.  But of course it rained all weekend.  But now the sun is out and we are enjoying some absolutely perfect Charleston spring weather.

We have filled our time with family and friends.  And running a few errands in familiar territory.  We had pre, pre Easter with the family and then we had pre-Easter and then finally Easter.  Lots and lots of family time and it has been fantastic!

We now have some young women in the family.  Carey, me, Hannah and Christie.

Grandson Brendan and his sweetie, Carey.

Grandson Casey and his sweetie, Hannah.

We had a blast dying Easter Eggs.

Living in the back parking lot of the company I used to work for has it's benefits too.  We have had a nice steady stream of visits from old friends.  Some of these folks I haven't seen in over a year so we have had fun catching up on each other's lives.

Full Circle

Thirteen months ago we headed out in our fifth wheel, leaving behind our home of almost 6 years, many friends and our family.  I have no idea how many miles we have traveled but it was A LOT.  Now we are back right where we started from.

We even went back to the same RV park where we spent the winter.  Same management, same bad water and same high prices.  But we were only at Oak Plantation for one night this time and now - now we are parked in the parking lot of the company where I used to work.  And it is pouring rain outside!

This picture was taken yesterday shortly after we got set up.  In the background is the place where I worked as Executive Assistant.  The owner of the property gave us permission to camp here.  It is just over the bridge from our daughter!  It was her idea and I think it is working out quite nicely so far.  First off, some of my former co-workers stopped by for cocktail hour.  And, one of those was my former boss who was/is just one of my very best ever friends. I was so fortunate to be able to work for such an incredible person and it warmed my heart to see him drive up.  I got good hugs from him!

Then it was a quick trip over to my daughter's home.  None of us could wait to see the dogs reaction to seeing each other again after a year.  Let me tell you - they don't forget each other!  They were all so, so happy and excited!  After about 45 minutes they finally slowed down and relaxed. 

Now this is some yellow dogs!  From the left - Socks, Lacy and our Jake. They really do love each other.

The rain has come and will be here for a couple more days.  In the meantime we will sleep here and then hang out at Christie's home.  We are making curry for everyone tomorrow.  I am so happy to be here!

Final Florida Stops

Florida really is about family.  First we visited with my aunt and her family and then on Sunday we visited my great-nephew and his family.  Derek and Nichole live on 17 acres out in the country where they have two beautiful children, two dogs, a cat and three horses.  We had such a great afternoon visiting and getting to know the little ones.  I even got to play dress-up with Heidi!  They fed the horses while we were there and it was so fun watching them come in from the pasture and run to their stalls in the barn looking for their oats.  One got so excited about his oats that he ran into the wrong stall and came out looking rather embarrassed as he found his way to his own stall. 

Florida is lush and beautiful but we still don’t like it here and it is lot like Texas when in the panhandle – a long way across.  I think it reminds us too much of California and we certainly don’t like being there.  Funny isn’t it?  I lived in California for over 30 years!  We are now back on Eastern Time and for some reason this change was not hard on us at all.  Maybe it is the full circle.  We left just over a year ago.  We rolled past the Two Thousand Mile mark this week.  That does not count the side trips and U-Turns!

We are in a small town called Yulee, FL and waiting out some weather.  We decided to stop here because it is so close to Fernandina Beach.  We stopped at Fernandina Beach going down the Intracoastal Waterway in our sailboat back in 2007 and then again coming back up it.  We enjoyed our visit both times and want to explore again.  Besides, there is an awesome pub there called the Palace Saloon that we remember had some great brews on tap.

This park we are in is just the strangest place.  Called Bows and Arrows, it is worn out and falling apart.  But the people here, the permanent ones, appear to all be one big happy family.  I don’t think any of them chose to live in broken down old RV’s but here they are and life is not easy for them.  But they help each other.  One woman was taking dinner to an old blind man last night.  I saw a man in an electric wheelchair walking his dog and visiting with his neighbors along the way.  There are absolutely beautiful old oak trees draped in Spanish moss.  But there is no grass, just weeds and dirt and the paving is almost gone.  There is a laundry room that I am using.  The machines work but the floor is so dirty…Heaven forbid I drop any of my clean clothes.

So, this afternoon it is off to Fernandina Beach! Rain or Shine!

Eugene, OR

After our wonderful visit in Roseburg with Mark and Lydia, we drove the short distance up to the Eugene area and parked for 5 days at Richardson County Park.  What an incredible park this is!  I knew we needed to find a good place for the 4^th of July holiday as everything would fill up so I had made these reservations a couple of weeks ahead and pretty much just took the space that was available.  We lucked out.  Our space (#77) was perfect for us except for being a little dark because of all of the pine trees.  Our area was huge and looked out onto a large clearing where we watched people playing horseshoes, riding bikes, hitting golf balls, playing frizbee and just moving around.  For Jake it was absolutely perfection because there were dogs everywhere and people all around to entertain him.  He sat for hours just watching the activity.

Kirby and I took a bike ride each morning along the lake shore and through the woods of the campground.  We sat and played cards – Spite and Malice and Gin Rummy.  We pretty much take turns winning!  We ate most all of our meals outdoors too with Kirby grilling yum stuff.  There were families there who were ruffing it in tents with a Coleman stove and the public bathrooms and we used to do that too (remember that we spent our honeymoon camping in a tent) but now we get to camp in luxury with our wonderful rig; hot showers in privacy, our own potty and a kitchen for cooking.  Not to mention our own bed.  I think I like this new way of camping!

We only went into Eugene one day and that was to have lunch with my sister’s son, John.  It had been over 15 years since we had seen him and it was a great visit!  What a nice young man!

The park was packed for the holiday and we were one of the last ones to leave on Sunday.  We made the big 25 minute trip to another Lane County Park – Armitage, where we are now.  This place is also incredible and I will post some photos of it soon.

Roseburg, OR

Oregon is very green but there is a good reason for that – it rains here.  So for 3 or 4 days it was cloudy and rainy.  Not bad rain, just dreary all the time.  Yesterday the sun came out and the day was bright and cheerful.  This is just such a gorgeous area.  Mountains, large trees, beautiful pastures full of cattle, sheep and llamas with a few goats too.  And streams and rivers all over the place.  We are really enjoying the beauty and everywhere we go, I see photos wanting to be taken.  We have been spending some time each day with Mark and Lydia, laughing and just enjoying being together.  Lydia and I even got a girl day shopping – fun!  And the guys drink Mark’s home brewed ales.  

We felt right at home sitting in Mark's garage drinking his home brew!

The park we are staying at is on the river and this is the view of the bridge.

Lunch at Tyee Landing gave us this awesome view. 

It is always nice when someone offers to take our picture.  We also enjoyed great big, fat, juicy hamburgers!

We went out of our way just so we could see the covered bridge and get my photo!

We pass this each time we go visiting Mark and Lydia.  I finally asked Kirby to please pull over so I could get a photo.  It is a classic!