September...where did it go?

Sorry to have not blogged for a while but Teddy and I havent been doing anything particularly interesting beyond enjoying our stay here at Nevada Treasure RV Resort in Pahrump, NV.Our days have been filled with going to the fitness center every morning (well every morning for Teddy and most mornings for me) and relaxing by the pools in the afternoons, and reading books on our Kindles. It has been very hot here during the month of September with daytime highs often reaching 100 degrees however a quick dip in one of the pools soon cools you off and quite truthfully it just doesn't seem that hot. At night the temperature quickly cools down to the mid sixties by morning.
A couple of times we also tried our hands at bowling. One of the amenities that the resort offers is a six lane bowling alley so we thought we would give it a try.




Neither of us had bowled for over 20 years and it sure showed. On our first game I got 96 and Teddy got 84.  Oh well....

Here Teddy attempts to pick up a spare.

And look at the grim determination on my face as I attempt to stare down the pins.









It became apparent that we weren't going to be invited to join any bowling teams in the near future but we had fun.  :-)

Nevada Treasure RV Resort

We are in Pahrump, Nevada at the Nevada Treasure RV Resort. This is one of the nicest RV parks that we have ever stayed at. It was originally built as a class A motorhome park with individual sites to be sold to RV owners, however the recession forced it into a change of philosophy. So now fifth wheels are not only encouraged but are in the majority. They are still marketing the individual sites but we like the freedom of not being tied to one spot.

It is a marvelous park with a fully equipped health club/fitness center. They sell memberships to local area residents but are free to RV residents.




The fitness center has a large workout room with all of the usual machines and individual men and womens locker rooms each with a steam room, sauna, massage room and whirlpool.

There is an outside pool area with three pools, a colder waterfall pool, a large intermediate temperature pool and a smaller whirlpool. Other amenities include a bowling alley, a restaurant, a large banquet room with a stage and a game room with pool tables. We are also provided with a daily newspaper and individual locked mailboxes.
The landscaping is gorgeous with many tropical plantings and palm trees. We truly love the place and would stay here longer but are told that it gets quite cold in the winter frequently dipping into the 30s.


So...
come November we still plan on continuing on to Lake Havasu, Arizona, and then in January plan on moving further south to Florence, AZ. However if things go as planned we expect to come back here in March or April before heading back east to "The Farm" for the summer.

Pahrump

We buttoned-up the farmhouse and began our annual westwardly migration on Saturday August 22. We again spent Saturday evening at the home of our good friends Dan & Pat Martenson in Escanaba, MI. Pat again treated us to a lovely dinner. We then stayed up late playing dominoes, swapping lies and catching up on the activities of mutual friends.
On Sunday we continued on to Appleton and set up for the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Mike & Toni visited us Sunday evening and then we retired early as we had to get up early Monday morning. Rose at 6am, dropped the Cardinal off at Appleton Camping so that they could replace the damaged fender skirts from lat spring's tire events and then hurried on over to Appleton Medical center for Teddy's 7am appointment for her annual mammogram. Had lunch with our friend Becky Welhouse, then back to Appleton Camping to retreive "The Roadhouse". We set up for another night at Wal-Mart and then attended "Monday Night Martinis" at Dick & Jenny Orrs. There we saw Wes, Greg, & Kate as well as Dick & Jen. A nice party with hors d'oeuvres by Jen and a fine selection of cheeses donated by Greg.
Tuesday August 25 we continued on West spending nights in succession at Albert Lea, Minnesota, Grand Island, Nebraska, Laramie, Wyoming, and Payson, Utah and arrived here in Pahrump, Nevada Saturday afternoon. We are at the Nevada Treasure RV Resort and plan on staying here through the month of October.

"Remembrance of things past."William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

Now that Teddy and I have finished our farmhouse remodeling projects for the summer we are taking some time to relax and enjoy ourselves before heading back west for the winter.
With that in mind we took a day trip downstate to visit some of our old growing-up stomping grounds. We traveled south from Leelanau county on Hwy M22 which skirts the eastern shore of Lake Michigan from Northport in the Leelanau peninsula to Manistee in Manistee county. Our first stop was in the village of Frankfort where Teddy lived in this house until moving here to the farm in the 10th grade. Teddy enjoyed driving around the town pointing out friends homes and various POIs.
From there we continued down M22 passing through Elberta, Arcadia and Onekama in succession.

Just south of Elberta Teddy snapped this pict of her Grandmother Gilbert's house, now abandoned and in disrepair. I can remember having dinner there when Teddy & I were first married; it is amazing how quickly mother nature takes back what's hers if there is no human intervention.

Onekama, on Portage Lake, is where my parents lived while I was in the 7th and 8th grade. I pointed out to Teddy the hills where my brothers & I sledded in winter and where I swam and fished in Portage Lake. My father worked for the USDAs Soil Conservation Service. his office was in Manistee some 15 or so miles south of Onekama. When I started the 9th we moved to Manistee so he could be closer to his office and we lived is a succession of rental homes there.




This is where we lived when I graduated from HS in 1956. Surprisingly, some fifty odd years later, the house looks pretty much the same now as then.

I joined the Air Force soon after graduating HS and shortly afterward my parents purchased this house three miles south of Manistee. I'm pretty sure that they weren't trying to hide from me as they did give me their new address. ;-)
It was an old farmhouse and through the years my father transformed it to a beautiful country home. It lay pretty far from the road so he built a connecting road dead-ending just past the house and donated it to the county with the provision that they pave it and build a circular turnaround at the end.



That road ended up being named, ...TA DAH...
"PAGE ROAD"







We returned home via US31 stopping in Beulah, MI for an ice-cream. It was a perfect day filled with pleasant memories.

Done with remodeling (part 2)

Continued from previous post
...then, after the concrete had hardened they came back and finished the framing of the old cellar entrance.

They tore off the old outside entrance...









...and then boxed in the cellar stairway.



















Complete with a door to the cellar.







Now we have a nice room to store our bikes, etc. while we are on the road in the winter.

Here is a final accounting of our expenses in remodeling the farmhouse (click on image for larger size). We spent $17,111.71. It turned out to be more expensive than we originally expected (isn't it always), but we feel it was worth it as we have a nice home base for summers and it will eventually become our permanent home when we can no longer full-time in our RV.
We plan on relaxing a bit and then start west for the next winter season on August 22. We will stop in Appleton for a few days and plan on arriving at the Nevada Treasure RV Resort in Pahrump, Nevada on September 1.

Done with remodeling (part 1)

We have finally wrapped up our remodeling efforts, at least for this season, here at "The Farm". The final step was to pour a concrete floor and enclose the entrance to the cellar. The area was previously enclosed with a dirt floor and covered the old outside cellar entrance. It was filled with old dried out fire wood from when the house was heated with a wood/coal furnace.










Our contractor, Gerard Belanger and his son Jason had to wheelbarrow the concrete to the entrance as there was no way that the concrete truck could get to the rear of the house.






They had to wade into the concrete to do the leveling and then do the finishing through the window & door with a long handled float.

Then it was wait for a day for the concrete to harden before boxing in the cellar entrance.

To be continued...

"The Farm"

I know, I know, I haven't blogged in a while. We've been very busy working on the farmhouse upgrades. What with daily 40 mile round trips to Traverse City and working on the house I just haven't had the energy. ;-(
Although, I'll admit that most of the grunt work has been done by our contractor, Gerard Belanger, and/or Teddy. My contribution has been for the most part with my checkbook.
We have replaced the flooring in the dining room, bedroom & living room and Teddy painted the kitchen, dining room & bathroom. In the kitchen I replaced the ceiling light with a ceiling fan/light fixture and built a microwave shelf over the range. We had our contractor completely redo the bathroom, replacing the vanity, toilet & shower and had a plumber move the washer & dryer from the bathroom to an adjacent utility room. Our contractor then built a linen closet in the old laundry space. We also tore down and rebuilt the old "bricks & boards" bookcase in the living room; put a glass top on Teddy's antique round table and I replaced six living room wall sconce light fixtures.
Along the way we also purchased a 40" digital HDTV, new kitchen appliances and several furniture items including a floor lamp, digital TV stand, white iron beadstead, wine/liquor butler and a 3 piece sectional loveseat for the living room. We also rescued our artwork which we had in storage from our Appleton home to decorate the walls.
Outside jobs included putting up a flagpole, installing shutters on all of the windows, purchasing a John Deere lawn tractor and since our DirecTV dish is permanently installed on the roof of the Cardinal I had to purchase an alternate DirecTV dish and install it on the outside of the house. Running the cable from the dish to the TV turned out to be a difficult job and I finally had to install crown molding in the dining room to hide the cables.
Click here for a link to a photo album showing before and after photos of some of the remodeling projects.

The Wedding

Our niece, Kathy Lawrence got married on Saturday July fourth. It was an outdoor wedding held at the Greystone Mansion Wedding Venue near Honor, Michigan. Kathy is the daughter of Teddy's sister Deborah and her husband Dr. Fred Lawrence. The groom was Ian Camp who with his parents, Elaine and Richard Camp, emigrated to the US from England when he was very young so the other side of the aisle was packed with visitors from the UK.











An unusual aspect of the wedding which I had never seen was the "sand ceremony" in which the Bride & Groom co-mingled two different colors of sand to represent the blending of the two families.





















After the ceremony the guests were treated to a buffet dinner...

...followed with an evening of celebration in Greystone's spacious ballroom.








Followed by the obligatory dance. :-)






As I write this, the happy couple are now somewhere in the Caribbean enjoying a honeymoon cruise.

Farm Progress

Painting the porch and adding shutters has really dressed up the place.
Whaddya' think?

The Farm

Teddy and I are moving part-time into the farmhouse on the Schlueter Cherry Farm here in Leelanau County, Michigan. Teddy's brother, John has his own house across the road and her sister, Deb lives just three miles from here. In fact the backyard of Deb's is where we have parked our trailer summers since 2005 when we first started fulltiming. So, as the farmhouse was going to be vacant, Teddy and I have decided to make it our summer home. I guess this means that we will no longer be official fulltimers but 3/4 timers instead.
The house has been in the Schlueter family for over three generations and dates back over one hundred years. Somewhere within the walls is an original log cabin, long ago covered up and encased within the walls of the current house. This is Teddy's girlhood home where she grew up so it's sort of a homecoming for her.The house though, needs a lot of work and TLC to bring it up to modern standards. Teddy's father and grandfather before him, being the thrifty German farmers that they were, were loath to spend any money on improvements that they considered unnecessary, instead investing their profits into improving farm production. We have been hard at work for the past two weeks, cleaning, sanding, painting, wiring, and plumbing. We still plan on redoing the bathroom this summer and perhaps the kitchen next summer. On the outside the house looks pretty good. Has vinyl siding and a fairly new roof. Next week I intend to enhance it's curb appeal with shutters on all of the windows. There is approximately an acre of grass to mow surrounding the house and to that end we have purchased a John Deere garden tractor/mower. As I have often said, "As long as I can keep Teddy working, I intend on furnishing her with the very best tools available." ;-)

We are in Cedar, Michigan (near Traverse City)

We left Bend, Oregon on Thursday May 28 as Teddy's mother entered the terminal stage of her life in Michigan, and passed away on June 5. She was 93 years old and had been suffering from heart disease for some time. The funeral was yesterday, June 9 and we are slowly getting back to normal. We intend to stay here in Cedar, living in the farmhouse till late August when we will head back to Pahrump, Nevada where we have reservations for September and October. Our trip east was fraught with difficulties as we had two tire blowouts on the trailer on consecutive days. To complicate problems even more they both occurred in sparsely populated areas of Montana and on a weekend (Saturday and Sunday). I guess the old adage "When it rains it pours" is true, at least in our case. As the ancient Greeks would say, "The Gods on Mount Olympus were having fun with us poor mortals again."
Here is what a tire looks like when it goes flat and shreds at highway speeds.
...and here I am on Sunday sitting in a camper chair trying to contact a tire dealer. The cell reception was so bad that I had to climb to the top of this hill to make a connection. The second tire failure was on Sunday and since I no longer had a spare, we had to wait about four hours to finally get someone to come out and mount two tires. I have Good Sam's road service which worked on Saturday but on Sunday they were having trouble finding help but promised to reimburse me for anyone that I could find. Finally a local sheriffs deputy got a tire guy to come out for us. In the meantime Teddy and I just sat and read books.

Pilot Butte

Smack dab in the middle of Bend, a big nob rises high up in the air. This is Pilot Butte, a 480 foot high cinder cone that erupted approximately 190,000 years ago. During the eruption, molten rock rose to the surface where it violently foamed due to escaping steam and sprayed glowing cinders hundreds of feet into the air. This eruption lasted a few months to a year or two.
The actual vent is located approximately 300 feet southwest of the summit. A two lane one mile road spirals up the butte to the summit in conjunction with another hiking trail spiral.
The drive up is a bit intimidating because of the vertical drop on the outside of the road but once there the view is well worth it.At the top there is limited parking along the road and a spectacular commanding view of Bend. It almost feels as if you are in an airplane flying over the city.I snapped this photo looking East......and Teddy with her trusty Olympus captured this view of the city looking West. The snowcapped peaks of the Three Sisters rise up from the Cascade range in the far background and in the foreground is the street from which I snapped the approach shot above.




On the way down Teddy elected to hike the trail...
























...so I drove down and waited in the parking lot at the trailhead.

The High Desert Museum

If you should have occasion to visit Bend, Oregon, a visit to the "High Desert Museum" should not to be missed.
Located about five miles south of Bend it has both outdoor live exhibits and indoor full size dioramas of early Oregon life.


While not in any exhibit per se this little fellow and his friends were ever alert looking for handouts from the many visitors.







Actually, I'm not as brave as this picture might suggest as this Northern Pacific Rattlesnake was behind a glass window.



















A pair of otters were frolicking in a large outdoor pool.












This is a rehabbed Swainson's Hawk that can't be released back to the wild because he/she has become imprinted on humans.











There is a small stream running through the property stocked with trout and salmon.

We throughly enjoyed our trip to the High Desert Museum.

Sisters

Last Friday, May 8, Teddy and I visited the small resort town of Sisters, Oregon. Sisters is located about 20 miles east of Bend and is apparently named after the three mountain peaks known as The Three Sisters which lie midway between Bend & Sisters. We left Bend on Rt. 20 which connects the two cities and as we were leaving Bend we were gobsmacked with this awesome view of Mt. Jefferson through our front windscreen.
Then as the road twisted and turned we were treated alternately with views of

Black Butte to the South of Mt. Jefferson...




...and further south the aforementioned Three Sisters.
That's South Sister to the left, then Middle Sister and North Sister on the right.
The Three Sisters and their neighbors to the north are mentioned in some of Oregon's earliest history. It is not known who first used the name Three Sisters to describe these peaks. In the early days they were often referred to as Faith, Hope, and Charity, starting from the north. These names, however did not prevail.
Lieutenant H.L. Abbot of the Pacific Railroad Surveys wrote of this view of the Three Sisters in his journal on September 4, 1855: "This morning, after riding a few miles, we emerged from the forest, and traversed an elevated plateau, dotted with cedars [junipers] and sage bushes...The air was uncommonly clear and pure...The snowy peaks of the Three Sisters appeared quite near."

After stopping for these photos we continued on to Sisters where we browsed several of the tourist gift shops and I snapped this photo of "Bronco Billy's" formerly known as the "Hotel Sisters", purported to be one of the most photographed buildings in Central Oregon.I was also able to capture a photo of this fierce looking desperado peering out from behind the bars of the local jail.