No Pictures!

3-21-2020
We adjusted the tension of the awning springs today.  I found a method online that was pretty safe.  I also ordered a new right end assembly as it appears the ratchet was damaged during the Mojavi blow out.  Two friends stopped by on the way home from flying at Toledo to buy the Voodoo I had left over from the Lacey swap meet.

3-23-2020
I got another couple of posts in my blog done today.  I also repaired the BOT left wing where the original owner had install a weight that wasn't needed, it flew better after I took it out.  James' laptop showed up today and I got it set up.

3-24-2020

We have gotten lots of rain and hail the last couple of days.  I had to update this post with this picture that I found after publishing it.  I had a big session of Arizona blogs today, then I went out and worked on the Kitfox this evening.  The first thing I discovered was the rudder was the wrong size.  I ended up adding a balsa strip onto the top.  We are holding up pretty well with quarantine, Vera is doing a lot of reading, I have my blog and planes.

3-28-2020
Well, we did our grocery shopping online at Fred Meyer and then went to their pick up area to get it today.  The young lady who brought it out was very friendly and efficient at loading it into the trunk.  Other than that we have been staying home most of the time.  Vera is knitting and reading while I try to catch up with my blog and build airplanes.  I called Pam today and we had a nice chat with her.  It is always fun to talk to her.

3-30-2020
I had a busy day, I worked on the Arizona blog posts, the Kitfox, cleaned up a bunch of cardboard and started digging a ditch to the storage container.  I also got the recycling moved out to the Blazer and took the garbage can down to the road.  One of the first things I did on the Kitfox today was put a finger through the balsa sheeting below the stabilizer.  I got that repaired and decided to fiberglass it on both sides.  I put two ounce fiberglass cloth on both sides so it is probably safe from my fingers now.  My valve extensions for the rear tires came today now I just need a nice day to install them.  I looked through all of our pictures and could not find anything for these four days.  That is a pretty rare thing for Vera and I.

Flying

The forecast for today was good so we packed up the motor home last night and went to Toledo this morning to fly.  I finally got a chance to test the thirty dollar Bird of Time glider I got at the Lacey swap meet.  It flies great.

The flying field is a pretty good place for social distancing, one other flyer showed up for about a hour.  He did a little mowing so his plane would take off, I finished up mowing the rest of the runway.

In addition to the BOT I flew the Skylane and the MXS-R.  It was a great day and it felt really good to be out flying again.

Installing the steps

3-16-2020

It was a pretty nice day, the temperature got up to 58 this afternoon.  I did more work on the Arizona blog entries today.  I did some research and got a laptop ordered for James to use in college.  The antenna lead on the roof of the motor home has stuck up in the air since I put the new antenna on.  Today I got up there and formed some coils into it and now it lays flat.

3-17-2020

It was another nice day with a high near 60.  I put the repaired steps back in with Vera's help.  Vera made a TV antenna tag to hang on the steering wheel so we won't drive off with it up.  We took a ride to warm up the Smart Car, we checked out Kroll and Studebaker Roads to see what had changed since our last drive up there.

The door to the storage container has been hard to open so I decided to raise one corner.  I used the old railroad jack that Dad used to have and it worked great.

Snow, Blog, Visitors and Shopping

3-13-2020

We woke up to about an inch of snow today.  I worked on the blog, then went to the shop and did some cleaning and work on the second Bird of Time.  The snow was all gone this afternoon.

3-14-2020

I went out and measured first thing this morning and we had two inches of snow.  I worked on the Hi Jolly post to my blog.  Debbie and Josh brought the ladder back this evening, I had loaned it to them to use while we were gone.  Jordon slept in his car seat the whole time they were here, but Jacob woke up and was sure full of grins and laughter.  It was nice getting caught up with what they had been doing.

3-15-2020

No church today so I did some work in the shop and did a couple of more days of blog entries.  We also made a run to Safeway for some supplies.  I asked the clerk if Sundays were always this busy and she said no.  Maybe it was because of the closures from the virus.

Dentist and Steps

3-6-2020 After a good nights sleep in our bed we continued unloading the motor home.  It is amazing how much stuff we packed into it and I haven't started on the airplanes yet.  James came up this afternoon and we had pizza with him, it was great to see him again.

3-9-2020 We ran to Kaiser this morning so I could get caught up on my bimonthly checks.  Everything went like clockwork and we got out of there in no time.  We did a little shopping and headed home.  I worked on the Arizona trip blog entries for a while and decided I needed a break.

As I was headed to the shop I began to wonder if the mower would start.  It did so I mowed the lawn this afternoon.

3-11-2020

I had a 7 AM dental appointment this morning, I was done in just a few minutes so I went to the Pancake House for breakfast.  I had my favorite, french toast with cinnamon apples on it.  What you see is the half I took home, breakfast will be good tomorrow.

3-12-2020
Today I repaired the motor home step that I bent in Quartzsite.  With Vera's help the job went pretty good and after a little paint it looks like new.

Vera took a bunch of flower pictures today, the azalea sure looks good.

This afternoon we trimmed the ferns North of the house and hauled them to the compost pile.  I did the taxes this evening this is the first year we have owed nothing to the IRS.

Day Four we make it Home!

We got started this morning somewhere around eight, filled up with gas and headed West on 20 toward Bend.

This picture was taken at eleven during a stop at the Brothers Oasis Rest Stop.  The roads are nice with lots of blue sky and sunshine.

This picture was taken in the Horse Ridge area between Brothers and Bend.

We are coming into Bend on 20, we spent a good part of our trip trying to figure out what the snow covered peaks were.

As we were coming into Bend on 20 and leaving on 97 there were acres and acres of solar arrays.

We made it to Madras and stayed on 97 heading for The Dalles.  We did not have a good time on 26 last year when we went by Mt Hood so we are trying a different route this year.

We stopped for lunch at the Cow Canyon Rest Area.

This is the first time we have ever been to Maupin and maybe the last, talk about curves as the road drops down to river level.

We are crossing the Deschutes River, then it was lots more tight curves as we climbed back out of the valley.  Vera was not impressed with Maupin's motto "Never a bad day in Maupin" wasn't written by someone who had to navigate those hairpin curves!

There were more curves as we dropped down into the Columbia River valley.

This is The Dalles bridge as we turned onto I84 to go down the gorge.

Here is Bonneville Dam, we are getting closer to home.

We stopped at the Kelso Safeway where we filled up on January 12th when we left and filled up again before heading home.

The Smart Car is going to need a good washing when we get settled at home.

We are back home again, it was a good vacation but it sure felt good to get home.  We drove the motor home 4675 miles and we were gone for 54 days, the longest we have ever been away from home.  A big Thank You to Barry and Mona for having us.  It is really nice to have a home base when you are away from home.

Heading Home Day Three

We got on the road about seven this morning.

It wasn't long until the sun came up and hit the top of the hills.

We saw the engines of this train heading South.

We were over a mile up the road when we came to this railroad crossing and the end of the train was just going by.

There was lots of pretty scenery as we headed West on I80.

I had always wanted to see Winnemucca Nevada after hearing my folks talk about going there.  There wasn't really much to see as we went through heading towards Oregon.

It always feels good getting into Oregon, it looks and feels like home.  Google maps took us to the Burns RV Park where we spent the night.

They had these signs telling new arrivals to park over Yonder!

It was hard to go wrong with all these signs.

We found Yonder and I went to register.  It turned out the owners were not there but one of the long term campers helped me register.

This is were we ended up parking, we got TV reception off our antenna so we were set for the night.  A pickup pulling a trailer came in after we were set up.  They must have been in an accident as the headlights, grill and bumper were all missing.  I could see why they wanted to stop for the day, the girl that helped me was not around so it took them a while to get registered.  We were hoping the rig showed up in one of our pictures but it did not happen.

Heading Home Day Two

We got on the road at 7:55 this morning, I took this picture of the Chloride sign when we got out to the highway.

There was lots of rocky scenery between Chloride and Boulder City.

I never did figure out where this water was but it is before we got to the Colorado River.

We are going into Nevada as we go by Hoover Dam.

This is the last picture until we got on the other side of Las Vegas, Vera did not like the traffic there so she concentrated on helping me instead of taking pictures. Going through Las Vegas went pretty good with only a couple of slow downs and we headed up 93 towards Ely.

Google Maps turned us off 93 onto 318 which is a shorter route and the roads were the best we have been on the whole trip.  This picture reminded us of the Palisades on White Pass.

We went down one long straight stretch that had this grass as far as we could see.

We had lunch at the Sunnyside rest stop, then contiued on to Ely.  We decided to keep going North on 93 again.

We ended up stopping at the Schellbourne rest area for the night.

They had a lot of signage about the Pony Express at this rest stop, the one that caught my attention was the warning sign to watch for rattlesnakes when going into the restroom.

It was one of the quieter rest stops we have stayed at, there wasn't much traffic on 93 at night.

Heading Home

I finished up checking the tire pressures this morning and after doing a little grinding with Barry's Dremel tool the wheel cover went on much easier than it came off.  I finished unhooking and putting things away, returned all of Barry's tools I had borrowed, then I went in and took a long hot shower in their house before we headed out at 9:58.  We had a great time at Barry and Mona's but we missed home.

Barry and Mona were out looking at their new pile of gravel as we left.

We filled up at Fry's to use up our rewards and headed towards I10.  I programmed Google Maps to use the same route we used going to Grand Canyon for part of the trip as I kind of knew the way.  I started seeing reader boards saying 74 was closed because of an accident and about then Google Maps changed our route to take us around it.

Then we had to use the windshield wipers for the first time since January.  At one point the rain changed to half snow.

There were lots of rock formations for Vera to take pictures of.

As we got up by Kingman the winds really started blowing so the second half of our trip was pretty interesting.  Things got better when we got off 40 and onto 93.

We saw some beautiful clouds as we went through the mountains.

We saw an Arizona Tourist Information sign that pointed toward Chloride which was four miles off 93.  The first thing we encountered was a small herd of cattle crossing the road, it is open range country down there.

We drove up the road and found the Chloride Western RV Park which I had seen on a website Barry had told me about.  We pulled in and wouldn't you know it I had to back up to pull into the site that was available.  I am getting better at it because it went great.  Chloride has a lot of history, if I wasn't wanting to get home we would have done some exploring.

I took a short walk after dinner and discovered this rainbow.

Then on the way back to the RV park I took some sunset pictures.