2020 – Baby Steps in a “Hold my Beer” Kinda Year

Wow. This has certainly been an…ahem…adventurous year. (There may be better adjectives, but most aren’t G-rated.) Fires, floods, global pandemic, murder hornets, all against a backdrop of political and social unrest…and we’re only halfway through it. Let’s hope the remainder is a bit more chill. Just to clarify 2020 in case you’re listening, I don’t mean as in a meteor induced ice age!

Like everyone else in the world, our travel plans for 2020 were totally upended. The good news, we have (so far) stayed safe, sane, and healthy. I hope you all can say the same. Even with the stay-at-home orders in effect, we’ve managed to stay busy. We enjoyed a couple of snowshoe trips to Gold Creek, WA at the Snoqualmie summit. Anyone familiar with Riley knows how much he loves his snow!

Rog and Riley power up the slope.

Gold Creek is a favorite for winter walkies.

Hugs for Mom and catching snowballs with Dad.

Another silver lining in the travel-ban cloud, we were home this spring to see our rhododendrons bloom! We’ve been on the road the last three years and it was something I really did miss.

Springtime in the Pacific Northwest.
We have rhoddies everywhere!

In addition to Riley’s weekly playdates and many virtual and social distanced fireside happy hours we undertook a fairly major DIY home improvement project. We replaced our old 10x10 patio cover with a 16x22 timber-frame Panabode cedar cover. We’re very happy with how it turned out! We still have work to do refinishing the deck, adding landscape lighting and a small water feature (can you say snowball effect?) but the project kept us busy during most of the lock-down.

The new cover is done! 

When we completed our travels in 2019, the last blog post mentioned our plans for this year included a river rafting trip on the Colorado through the Grand Canyon in June and camping at Lake Easton, WA over the 4^th of July. Well the rafting trip has been rescheduled to September, but we did manage to hang onto the camping trip to Lake Easton. It’s our first outing of the year and only 66 miles from home….baby steps are better than no steps at all! We’ll add a few stops to stretch our trip to a couple weeks, but we won’t stray far from home.    

Lake Easton.

We arrived at Lake Easton State Park on Thursday, 7/2 and met up with my brother Tim, his friend Mike, and our friends Mikey and Glen. Lake Easton has a lot going for it. A lovely campground with spacious sites under the trees, a beautiful lake for kayaking, and a nearby rail-to-trail for hiking and biking. The downside – we were literally a stones throw away from Interstate 90 and just in case the constant rumbling of the semi-trucks wasn’t enough, cue the train. We had to raise our voices to be heard sitting 6-feet apart around the campfire. Lol.

Even though it wasn’t quite what we’d call peaceful and quiet, we had a delightful time. We ate too much and spent many hours just relaxing by the campfire. It felt great to ease from project mode back into travel-mode. The 4^th of July we stayed close to camp since Riley is not a fireworks fan. While fireworks aren’t allowed in the state park, there was enough private property nearby that it was popping until late into the night. Mikey does some amazing dutch oven cooking and we were treated to a delicious chicken and dumpling stew and spiced baked apples that were to die for. Cooking duties rotated and we ate verrrrry well all weekend. Riley had a long woods walk and several opportunities to wade in the lake.

Miley toils over his dutch oven deliciousness.
The baked apples were amazing!

Riley in his natural habitat.

Rog and I biked part of the John Wayne Pioneer trail which follows the historic Milwaukee Road (railway), the section covered by Ironhorse State Park is over 100 miles long. I’ve mentioned before that while Rog loves his mountain bike adventures, I’m a rails-to-trails kinda girl so I was thrilled for a chance to get back on the bike without risking life and limb. Even so, my butt needed time to get reacquainted with the bike seat, so we only did a short 11-mile ride. (Note: I inherited Rog’s old bike and I swear the seat on it was designed by the Spanish Inquisition. I will be upgrading soon!)

On the trail.

Lake Easton from the old rail bridge.

View of the Alpine Lake Wilderness area. Stunning!

On Sunday, Rog and I took the kayak out for a bit. The weather was perfect and it was fun to paddle under the interstate and then part way around the lake and under the old railroad bridge.

Rog paddles while I take pictures.
Seems like a good division of labor to me! Lol.

Kayaking under Interstate 90, not something you get to do every day.

A train passes the old railway bridge.

Our four days at Lake Easton passed quickly. Our next baby step is another short drive to a National Forest campground near Leavenworth, WA. It’s far out into the boonies so there will be no road noise, alas there will also be absolutely no cell service. Always a compromise. Lol.

The Long Way Home

We planned the first two stops on the trip home before leaving the Fiesta. We chose Sleeping Ute RV Park a few miles outside of Cortez, CO for its proximity to a network of mountain bike trails called Phil’s World that Rog had ridden two years ago when we did our year on the road. (Has it been that long?!). He had a great time revisiting the trail system while I caught up on a couple weeks’ worth of laundry.

On the trails in Phil's World. 

Ok, the bone art is just a little creepy. Lol.

  

My fondest memories of Cortez involved Moose and More, a gourmet ice cream and chocolate shop. Happily, we both got to revisit our favorite spots. Riley is a fan now too. 😊

We don't want to share, so Riley gets his own ice cream at Moose & More. 

Handmade chocolates and the cutest bear stool.
I was hoping he could follow me home, but no luck.

Our second stop was another mountain biking mecca that we hit on our big trip. We arrived on Tuesday, 10/15, for a two-night stay at Horsethief Campground near Moab, UT. Moab has become ridiculously popular with mountain bikers, the jeep crowd, and all manner of outdoor enthusiasts. We couldn’t believe how much the town has grown. Given all the crowds and new construction, it appears to be a victim of its own success. Rog opted to ride the trails near the campground rather than deal with the hordes closer to Moab. I took Riley on the hiking trail near the campground and we spent the evenings by the campfire.

The boys are relaxing at Horsethief BLM campground. 

Scenes from Rog's mountain bike ride.

View from the hiking trail.

Perfect evening for a campfire.

Rog had been minding the weather forecasts and we needed to choose our route home. Our original plan was just to beat feet north but there were winter storm warnings for some of the passes. Hmmmm. Then Rog made the mistake of saying we could go through Sacramento and then up I-5. The route was 400 miles longer and I-5 is mind numbingly boring, BUT we’d get to visit our youngest daughter, Rian. The downside, to get there by the weekend we’d have to put in some long driving days. We’ve learned the quickest way to burn out on the road is trying to go too far, too fast. So we try to plan for 150-mile days and no more than 2 consecutive travel days without a layover. Hmmmm… we needed to go 832 miles in three days. AND we had red flag warnings and a wind advisory across parts of Utah and Nevada. This is going to be fun (NOT).

Sunrise and we're ready to roll.

We opted for an early start and pulled out of Horsethief on Thursday, 10/17, while the sunrise was still painting the sky. We put in back-to-back 325-mile days to get across Nevada.  The section of I-70 that we traveled was gorgeous. Then we turned onto Hwy 50 – The Loneliest Road. I can assure you that there is a whole lot of nothing across most of Nevada. We stayed one night at the Sacramento Pass BLM campground near Ely, NV and loved it there. One of those tiny gems we wished we had more time to explore. We fought the winds our second day and made it to a RV park in Fernley, NV. From there, we pulled into the RV park at Cal Expo in Sacramento around lunchtime on Saturday. Wooohooo, we made it!

Merrimac and Monitor

This stretch of I-70 was beautiful.

At Sacramento Pass BLM campground.

View from the campground.

Loved the old-school insulators. 

Tiny fish pond at the campground.

Alien invaders shared our site.

Our plan was to stay three nights in Sacramento, visiting Rian on Saturday and Sunday and then driving to St. Helena to visit Grandma Ardys on Monday. Rian had already committed to participating in a 5K walk for Breast Cancer on Sunday morning, so we happily joined her. Riley did great and was quite the hit.

Everybody got a little pink bling. :) 

Our motley crew assembles.

Love to watch people's reaction to Riley.
He's such a good boy.

Crossing Tower Bridge.

Worth a 400 mile detour to see our girl?
Absolutely!

Rian and I had fun thrifting and shopping for accessories for her room. Then we started working on a little DIY project. She wanted to paint an accent wall in her room and put up shelves. We didn’t get as much done as we’d hoped, so after visiting Grandma Ardys on Monday we stayed an extra day to finish up the painting and install shelves. Rian chose a beautiful color and it looked great. She’s been renting her house for over four years now and loves the neighborhood. She really wants to buy her own place, but so far hasn’t found anything affordable in the area.

Grandma Ardys and Riley hanging out together.

Just so dang handsome. 

Shelves hung and accent wall painted.
It's a lovely warm color, good pick! 

On Wednesday, 10/23, we moved from Sacramento to Roger’s Mom’s house in Redding for two nights. It’s always fun to visit and we appreciate the ultimate moochdock with full hook-ups.

Mom has a hug for Rog and one for Riley. 

From there we hit our tried and true stops at Valley of the Rogue State Park just south of Grants Pass, OR. We took advantage of the good weather and walked the River Trail for a few miles. The fall colors were beautiful. We spent our last night on the road at the French Prairie Rest Stop in Aurora, OR. That got us through Portland on a Sunday morning. About the best you can hope for traffic-wise without sneaking through at 3am. Lol.

The leaves at Valley of the Rogue were stunning.

Check out this guy we met on the trail.

Walkies along the river.

And then we were home. It’s been another amazing adventure. Of course, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta was the highlight, but we also added two national parks (Rocky Mountain and Great Sand Dunes) and two national monuments (Craters of the Moon and Dinosaur) to our list. During our 56 days on the road, we traveled 3820 miles and stayed at 22 places. Our house sitters had to leave early due to a medical emergency, so our friend Scott has been helping out with the house and kitties until we made it home. We’ll have lots of mail to sort and all the fall house and yardwork to catch up on. Not to mention maintenance and work on the RV.  Sigh…maybe we should just keep going. Lol.  

We're baaaack. And fall is here!

Actually, we have a few plans already for 2020. The most exciting is a 15-day river rafting trip on the Colorado through the Grand Canyon in June. We just made reservations for camping at Lake Easton, WA over the 4^th of July and who knows where we’ll go from there. Stay tuned! 😊

Farewell Balloon Fiesta!

I promised to wrap up our stay at the Balloon Fiesta (and I will!) but I need to back track a little. After striking out on the stand-by list on Friday, 10/11, we attended the morning session which included the Special Shapes Rodeo. It is so much fun hanging out on field and watching the specials inflate. Some of them are just huge and we always seemed to see new ones each time. Riley was intrigued too, although he watched from the comfort of the RV.

Riley is a fan of the special shape balloons too!

Cops and Robbers. Lol.

A Lion King. 

This looks like a balloon smack-down. 

We hadn't seen the pirate before...

...or this awesome Beagle.

A few more to add to our collection. Lol.

Friday afternoon we connected with our friends Bob and Carole. We attended the evening session together, the Special Shape Glowdeo. As thrilling as the specials are during the day, double that in the evening when they’re all lit up. And it was even more fun to share it with friends. And speaking of friends, Bob and Carole did a portion of Hwy 395 that we love before coming to the Fiesta. We told them about some of our favorite stops, rhapsodizing about the hard soda from Indian Wells Brewery, and they agreed to pick some up for us. They’d read our blog and when they stopped in Bishop they also picked up some of our favorite Great Basin Bakery Rosemary Shortbread cookies AND a Porter Brownie from Mountain Rambler Brewery. I had a birthday Porter Brownie!! How sweet is that??!!

Hugs and a giant robot.

Darth Vader and Yoda.
They were accompanied by several human storm troopers
to the delight of all the Star Wars fans. 

The glow has begun!

I think the fishy looks a little worried. Lol.

What a fun line-up, Sylvester and Tweety are on the end.

As much as we love the special shapes, it wouldn’t be at all fair to shortchange what we call the “pretties”. So many of the balloons are just gorgeous rainbow geometric designs. Against the brilliant blue New Mexico sky, they are truly an amazing sight. There were hundreds, so this is just a small handful. Can you pick a favorite?

Another thing we learned about is the different sizes and shapes of the more traditional balloons. The smallest are called cloud hoppers, they’re shaped like a regular balloon but instead of a basket they have a chair frame with a propane tank attached. The pilot and maybe one passenger are strapped into the frame and fly the balloon from a sitting position.  We saw one pilot transfer from his wheelchair to the cloud hopper seat. Brilliant. Cloud hoppers range from 21,000 to 31,000 cubic feet.

This cloud hopper is dropping his marker
at the fly-in competition.

Another variation is the racer balloon. It is more streamlined and taller than it is wide, the shape helps it ascend and descend faster. Racers are medium sized and range from 56,000 to 77,000 cubic feet.

Race balloon.

Regular balloons are the most common shape and are used for both private and commercial flying. They range in size from 55,000 to 150,000 with the larger passenger balloons over 300,000 cubic feet. The largest balloon in the world is 750,000 cubic feet and is able to carry 32-35 people. That is about twice the size of the one we rode in!

Yep, that's the balloon we flew in!

Saturday evening Bob and Carole came over to the north RV lot (they were staying in the south RV lot) to get a ringside seat for the fireworks. It was an extraordinary show, since it was the last night for fireworks they threw everything in for the grand finale. Riley had his CBD treats, thunder jacket, cotton balls stuffed in his ears (yes, that helped!) and one of us stayed in the RV with him. He did fine. He was a brave boy, the mortars were flying so fast and furious and so close we could feel the whole rig shake. The Fourth of July should be a piece of cake after this. Lol.

Quite the fireworks show right in our backyard!

What a display!

Sunday was the last day of the Fiesta and we were there for the Farewell Mass Ascension. I was afraid a lot of the balloonists would have already departed, but the launch field was full and it was a beautiful ending to a spectacular event.

Farewell Mass Ascension.

The Stagecoach drifts over the vendor tents. 

Rainbow overhead. :) 

Farewell pano.

We pulled out Sunday, 10/13, after the balloons were gone with plans to stay near Cortez, Co. Rog wants to get a few days of mountain biking in on the way home. We’re still watching the weather and trying to decide on a route home. We'll keep you posted.