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Comicon, family, flowers, and doctors

The Salt Lake Comicon had a Fan-X experience convention last weekend. My second son, Mark, and two of his long time friends (I will call them K and R) plus their baby (I will call her A) live in Bozeman, MT, and they decided to come to our house to attend plus do some sightseeing and shopping. What fun! The week started out great, but then we one by one were felled by a GI virus. It did put a damper on the trip, and they decided to leave on Friday afternoon instead of staying until Saturday. First to get sick was A, then R, then K, then my husband Kevin, and finally me. My son didn’t catch it, but he decided to leave so he wouldn’t he exposed any more. After they left we put all the linens in the washer on the “sanitize” setting, and I will warn the housekeepers to sanitize everything carefully.

After I finally recovered (it took until Sunday), we took advantage of the gorgeous weather we have been having to head to Antelope Island State Park for some sightseeing. We stayed for four hours, looking for bison calves, but the nursery herd was hiding out. You can’t beat northern Utah on a clear day with highs in the mid 70s!

Monday and Tuesday we laid mulch. Mark and R had helped lay some, but we needed another 40 bags. The garden looks so lovely now! I got everything in the back pruned up, though the roses in the front still need work.

Tuesday was also a big day for Kevin. He finally got into the orthopedic surgeon to schedule an arthroscopic meniscus removal in his knee. It is now planned for 3 weeks from now, and he should be fully recovered by our trip to Yosemite in mid May. Poor fellow is in quite a bit of pain and can’t sleep well at night, so we want it as soon as possible.

Home tasks

After relaxing a couple of days, I am almost finally recovered from the sinus infection from hell. Now I only cough my lungs out when I go to sleep, a big improvement over doing it pretty much constantly a week ago. We are just doing house stuff. Kevin is working on a new side table for the trailer and trying to figure out how to get 400 watts of solar set up. He also is doing some general maintenance to the trailer. Trailers get bounced and jiggled all over, and things are always coming loose. It is just one of the things that you have to do. It is a bit challenging because his knee is giving him fits. He had a MRI yesterday, and we hope to have a diagnosis soon. The he can figure out what he needs to do.

I have been sewing. I made two fitted sheets for the Pack n Play I have. I ended up taking a 34xWOF fabric with 4″ inch boxes in the corner. My Bernina serger (made by Juki) has a foot designed to apply elastic very efficiently, and it made the job much easier. I also made a fitted crib sheet for one of my daughter’s friends. It uses two yards with 9″ boxes. It is out of the cutest Harry Potter fabric. (Ignore the stray threads.) The fabric came from etsy, and I am pretty sure it is a Spoonflower fabric based on the way it was printed. I am a bit worried about all that black on a crib sheet, but it isn’t my sheet!

I have also been doing some quilting. I bought the most wonderful fabric panel when I was at the Home and Machine Quilting Show in Sandy, UT last year. I just fell in love with it. I decided to use a fusible batting so it would be stiffer and not shrink. It didn’t work perfectly, but it isn’t bad. I just outline quilted the rock art figures with MonoPoly thread from Superior Threads. It is a very fine invisible thread, and I used it because I wanted to emphasize the figures but not distract from them. I used brown SuperBob on the bottom to coordinate with the backing. The binding is just a nice black cotton. I am going to put it where it can be seen as people come in my front door.

We also spent some time today pruning the service berry and one of the roses. We filled up the trash can so we will have to finish up after trash day.

Home (and getting there)

After a nice Brueger’s bagel, we headed from Tucson to Payson, AZ and Houston Mesa campground. It is a Forest Service campground run by a concessionaire just north of the town and set in the pine trees. It is just gorgeous, and there were only a couple of other campers. The camp hosts were very nice, and obviously rather bored with the limited number of campers. They talked to us quite a while, and were helpful in identifying places to go. The only problem with the big pull through site was the road noise; there was a lot of it!

We ended up just spending the night and decided to head to Utah. We drove through a wonderful scenic area with a huge copper mine. I live in the town with the Kennicott mine, the biggest open pit copper mine in the world, and I was still impressed with this one. Oddly the tailings were very colorful and interesting – all the shades of tan, brown, gray, along with green and pinks.

We spent our last night on the road at the Beaver KOA. Nice folks and only one other campsite occupied. It is a nice little place, very well kept and far enough off the highway to be very quiet. We took our time leaving, making sure the tanks were clean and empty before heading home. I even dusted! I still need to sweep the floor and wash the rugs, but it was pretty clean as we pulled it in the side yard. We started laundry (a never ending task) and cleaned out the refrigerator. Now the trailer will sleep for a few weeks.

We aren’t making any plans for April until we find out what is up with Kevin’s knee. It is very painful and makes these weird popping noises. He had this rather silly idea that he could wait until he went on Medicare in September, but it is just too sore. He saw our family practitioner today, and he has a MRI scheduled for Friday. By mid next week we will hopefully know what he has to do to be better since the PT and meds aren’t working. I am hoping it is a quick arthroscopic clean up of the tendon, but that is not based on any specific knowledge. If he can get better quickly, we may go to a high school get together in Oklahoma City on Easter weekend. If not, we will stay here (or at least close) until mid May when we have reservations for the Yosemite area.

Desert beauty

We decided to go to the Tucson area today. We are staying at the Pima County Fairgrounds, just south of Tucson proper. The site is fairly cheap, $25 for full hookups, but it is a crowded gravel parking lot. Of course it is just for an overnight stay so I don’t mind. We got in around 1:00 and chose a well-reviewed Thai restaurant for lunch. “Luckies” was wonderful. My green curry was loaded with good stuff, and just spicy enough to leave a tingle on my lips. It was deliciously warm today, upper 60s, so after lunch we took a trip to the Saguaro National Park’s east unit. It was glorious! I enjoy desert plants in general (such textures!), and I have a special fondness for the Sonoran desert flora. These are the types of plants I had in my yard in Albuquerque – yuccas, barrel cactus, chollas, sotols, etc. Here is a somewhat fuzzy picture of the area.

I never had ocotillos in my yard since they need warmer weather. I do think they have the most wonderful shape though!

The chollas looked like little fuzzy trees.

And of course there were lots and lots of saguaros.

We keep heading gradually northwest. Where we stay tomorrow depends on when we get out of camp. There is a Brueger’s Bagel bakery not too far away, so we have to have breakfast there. They do real boiled then baked bagels, something I can’t get in SLC. I adore them!

A short and windy day

We were planning on making it somewhere just east of Tucson and doing some sightseeing, but the weather changed our minds. We knew there were wind and red flag warnings to the New Mexico border on I-10, but our trailer/truck combo handles wind very well. It does help to have an oversized truck! However New Mexico and Arizona closed I-10 west of Lordsburg, NM (I don’t remember where the Arizona closure began). They identified a detour using Highway 70, but that is a long way out of the way. We thought about it, but decided to stay in Lordsburg for the night. We had a choice between the Flying J parking lot or a KOA, and we chose the KOA. It was a good thing too! When we went to dinner (a nice little local place called “Ramona’s”), the line on 70 trying to get back on eastbound I-10 was miles long and moving at a crawl. There were city police, county sheriffs, and highway patrol trying to move the traffic along, but it was a mess. I am sure the westbound end was just as bad. You can’t take the traffic traveling on a high speed interstate and easily put it on a two lane state highway. I understand the issue west of Lordsburg is a large playa (dry lakebed) where the wind blown dust provides zero visibility.

The KOA is a decent place to spend the night, though the train does sound a whistle occasionally. I just slept through it all after having two glasses of Pastis, an anise flavored liquour introduced to me by my oldest son. Oh, and the truck picked up a nail in the tire driving into town. Everything was fine as we set up, but by the time we went to dinner we had lost 1/4 of the air. No tire shop was open, but Kevin headed off to one this morning after airing up the tire (it was down to 20 pounds). We bought a high capacity air compressor just for this reason! The truck needs about 80 pounds in the rear tires to hold the trailer weight. Thank goodness for the TPMS that now comes standard in most vehicles. Having a tire blow out at 65 mph while pulling a trailer is not minor.

Today we continue generally north and west, heading back home.

I hate being sick

In my last post (a very long time ago!) I noted I had a bad cold. That bad cold morphed into a truly horrid sinus infection, and I have not posted our locations since then. Here is an update.

17-20 February: We ended up in Loveland, CO at Boyd Lake State Park the nights of 17-19 February. It is a very nice park in the middle of a housing addition, rather odd but ok. It was expensive since there is a park entry fee in addition to the camping fee so we paid $34 for a water and electric site. It was roomy and much nicer than the parks in town, so I don’t regret the money. Of course, I was sick the entire 3 nights we were there so I don’t remember much either. We did go to Rocky Mountain National Park, and that made enough of an impression that I have some memories of it.

Gorgeous as usual. It was the first time we have been there in the winter, but it was very warm with only a little snow in the lower elevations.

20-21 February: After Loveland we took I-25 to Sugarite State Park in New Mexico. We camped one night in the Lake Alice campground, the only campground open. The sites are small, the roads are dirty, and there was a boil order for the water, but it was set in a lovely piñon forested area. The cost was incredible at only $18 for a full hookup site (though no water). My sinus infection was getting worse, and I couldn’t do any walks let alone hike. The canyon had a number of historic sites, but all I could see were the ones viewable from the road. I basically stayed in the trailer and coughed my lungs out. I didn’t even take any pictures.

21-24 February: Off to Albuquerque and an Urgent Care center! We camped at our favorite Albuquerque campground, the KOA North in Bernalillo. It isn’t as fancy as some of the newer ones on the west side of town, but has nice people and doesn’t feel like a parking lot even though the sites aren’t large. We stayed three nights, and I got to a doctor. After Z-pack antibiotics and codeine cough syrup, I decided I would survive. I basically just hibernated the entire three days though.

24-28 February: (OK, it is just 27 February now, but we will be leaving in the morning.) The weather was warmer down south, so there we went. We ended up a few miles south of Alamogordo, NM at Oscar Lee State Park. What an absolutely gorgeous place and only $10 a night for a large, well separated dry campsite. This is the first time since Quartzsite that the weather and I both were good! Warm but windy meant I could sit outside and finally kick the infection. Alamogordo is a pretty poor town, and we didn’t enjoy it at all. We did get to the city museum (quite nice) and the International Space Museum which was very good. Kevin and I worked in Aerospace for many years, and we related to many of the displays. I didn’t get any pictures there, but I should have!

The road into Dog Canyon where the park is.

The view off our campsite. Lots of variety in the desert flora. We have also seen roadrunners and Gambrel’s Quail.

Yesterday I actually did a short nature walk here at the park. We also went on a tour of the historic home of the park’s namesake.

The house has been reconstructed, but it was hard to have anything but sympathy for the people who were making a living in this very tough and unforgiving land. They were successful, but what challenges they must have had! We also went to White Sands National Monument. I was there as a teenager with my family, but Kevin had never been.

Umm. I sure can see a difference in the quality of the pictures I took with my camera (RMNP) and the ones from the iPhone (all the rest of them). It is a pain to transfer the pictures from the camera to the iPad I post to the blog from, but I may just have to do it more often.

We leave tomorrow morning (28 February). The current plan (subject to change tomorrow morning) is to head to Las Cruces and I-10 tomorrow morning. I have no idea where we will end up, but that is part of the fun.

A change of plans

We headed out of Iowa a little after 9:00 am, planning on going to Oklahoma. Then we saw a huge flock of pelicans in Nebraska. When I say huge, it was at least 1000 birds, some wheeling in the air and even more on the ground. Amazing! I remembered how I had been in the middle of the great bird migration in early March almost 5 years ago while on I-80 in Nebraska. Ummm. It was almost March. Was it possible the migration was starting early? There is a bubble of deliciously warm air over the Great Plains, so we turned north to I-80 instead of Oklahoma. We aren’t in the middle of the main migration, but we did see a lot of birds. Take a look at this picture. All that almost solid white are birds completely covering a borrow pit along the side of the highway.

As usual, it isn’t the best of pictures, but it shows how thick the geese were. These were mostly Snow Geese with a few other geese and even some ducks stuck in the middle of them. During the main migration, this kind of scene occurs in fields and ponds for well over 100 miles. Sadly we only saw the geese and ducks, no sandhill cranes.

We are spending the night in North Platte, Nebraska at Holiday RV Park. Definitely some traffic noise, but it is convenient and pretty cheap for electric, wifi, and cable. Central water, and there is a sewer hookup we don’t need yet. Normally they are full hookups (we have stayed here a few times before), but they are leaving the water off for the season. Since today’s high temperature was in the 70’s, it doesn’t seem reasonable, but it is still February. From here we plan on heading to Colorado, probably Loveland. I’d like to see Rocky Mountain National Park in the winter, but I sure don’t want to camp there. Lowland camping with electricity and cable sounds a lot more enjoyable. Then again, we may change our minds!

Oh, and I have picked up a rotten head cold. I am coughing a lot, and I have a sore throats from the drainage. Ugh.

Southwestern Iowa and warmth

I did have some good news regarding the last post. The water pump is fine – no more weird noises. It must have had a bubble or something in it, because everything is fine now. Also the new mattress still feels great.

We did travel on Valentine’s Day, and we made it to a lovely state park in far southwestern Iowa named Waubonsie. We have been the only campers here, and the weather has been really nice with blue skies, light breezes, and highs in the upper 40s/low 50s. The stars are gorgeous since it is a long way to anywhere with light pollution, and the owls and coyotes have been very noisy at night. During the day we did laundry (how exciting) and just relaxed. Last night I made roasted potatoes and onions, then pan grilled some turkey sausage. Yum. Tonight I baked a pasta casserole in the Dutch Oven. It was ok, but it definitely needed more seasoning. It was nice to just do things more camping related.

Here is the campground. Not much green but lots of vegetation. The campsite we are in is only $11.00 a night right now since it is off season, but it has electricity and water.

We sat around a fire in the evening, propane instead of wood because it is so much easier to adjust. Kevin doesn’t always look so dour! We have a sunshade-type shelter we use to keep out of sun and wind occasionally, and this time we have used it both nights to reflect the heat from the fire. It made it much more comfortable. Notice the box wine on the table and the light from the trailer behind the shelter.

We may be the only people here, but there are lots of birds and animals. Lots of geese heading to and from the nearby Missouri River make a racket, multiple owls beginning at dusk and continuing until we go inside hoot at us, plus coyotes are talking to one another. We have also seen turkey and deer plus a number of birds. It is lovely to heard the night sounds while gazing into the fire.

Pretty nice for a propane fire pit!

Tomorrow we will leave here and hopefully make it to somewhere in northern Oklahoma. It is nice to not have a schedule. We will decide somewhere down the road where to stay and how long. Retirement does have its advantages!

Soon to be traveling again!

Today the part for our truck’s recall notice came in, and Kevin is getting it installed now. He is also going to get an oil and fuel filter change for the truck, so it will be an expensive day. The recall issue is obviously free of charge, but oil and filters on a diesel pickup are pricey. Luckily it doesn’t have to be done often.

I am having an issue with the trailer water pump though. It sounds awful when I use it, noisy and rough. The water level is low, so I tried to fill it. I couldn’t get water to go in though! I have no idea why, so I am just going to leave it until Kevin comes back. It is well above freezing, but the wind is nasty and wet. I had forgotten how much colder a wet wind feels than the dry winds we get out West.

Ooh, but we do have good news too! We bought a foam RV mattress to replace the barely adequate coil mattress we got with the trailer. I really like foam, though this is a bit softer than I prefer. It is thicker than the old mattress, but the quilt I made still fits, so I am glad of that! Many RV mattresses are odd sized; ours is a “short queen”, six inches shorter than a regular queen. That means special mattresses, special sheets, etc. Quite a pain! I made the quilt that is on the bed now, and I love how nice it feels. It is with quality cotton fabric and a luscious wool batting so it drapes well yet is comfortable in a variety of temperatures. I like using wool batting in quilts for adults, but I use cotton batting in quilts for children or ones I know will be washed a lot. The wool can be machine washed and dried, but it does take more care than cotton.

I am spending a lot of time reading since we are stationary and it is cold. I am working my way through Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher mysteries, and having a great time. My public library has an ebook system, and I have been able to get quite a few. I am trying to read them in order, but number 5 was checked out by someone else, and I accidentally checked out number 19 (and read it). I am now on number 10, “Death Before Wicket.” I will check out a few more before we leave the campground here. My library ebook system only works on real wifi, not my phone’s hot spot making it something I have to plan for. I loved the PBS series, and it turns out to be a quite faithful adaptation. There are only a few character modifications, but the Miss Fisher in the show is the same Miss Fisher in the books.

Tonight we will have Indian food with my oldest son and his family, then we head out tomorrow. I am so in need of warmer weather! We have 3-4 weeks before we intend on being home, so we have lots of time to dawdle along the way. No specific plans, just heading in the general direction of south.

Out of the warmth

Yesterday was one of those glorious desert winter days. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky, the wind was light, and the air was warm. Ahhh! I did a lot of just sitting in my recliner outside. We also took the bikes out for a ride to pick up a funnel cake for breakfast (don’t judge LOL!) and to visit the Quartzsite Museum, a surprisingly nice place. We also had a nice campfire with some of the RV Forum folks who were still around. Most people had left on Sunday morning, the official end of the rally, but there were enough to enjoy a nice chat.

We decided to leave today, as originally planned. We intended on heading through southern Arizona towards Albuquerque, waiting there until my daughter called to say she was in labor. Well, she called us this morning as we were finishing packing that she was headed to the hospital tonight to start her induction. We finished packing, but instead of just driving a few hours down the road, we made it to Grants, New Mexico after a bit over 9 hours of driving. The roads were clear, though there definitely was snow along the sides of the roads in a number of areas. We are staying the night in a clean RV park called Bar S, only $21 for full hookups. We really needed to dump the tanks and fill up with water. The complication is that it is going to be colder tonight than we have ever stayed in the trailer, 19 degrees! (I almost used a dash instead of a comma, but it looked like negative 19, a bit much even for us.) There is a train that comes by frequently, but it doesn’t sound its horn, so I think I will sleep fine. The cats are just glad to be out of the truck. (I know it isn’t a great picture, but she keeps moving her head.)