Tag: Iowa

On the road again

I said last time I have been in a blogging funk, so nothing has been written. I have been slowly recovering from my shoulder surgery, but it has been slow. I think the soreness is one of the reasons I haven’t been doing as much. We have been doing a few things though! We had Thanksgiving dinner with three of our kids and all six of the grandkids, something that hasn’t happened before! We went a bit non-traditional with a smoked turkey and sous vide sirloin. It was a much more relaxing approach, and I think I will repeat it in the future. We also had Christmas with all four kids, spouses, a girlfriend, and five of the grandkids. Even nicer was the meal was mostly made by my oldest son and his wife, both great cooks. It is time to start transferring host duties.

I have also been in a quilting funk. I have only finished one quilt for my daughter. I was lucky to get time with each of the older two granddaughters, 12, to do some sewing. They each got to pick out fabric for a pillowcase, and then they sewed it by themselves. They were appropriately pretty proud of themselves.

We couldn’t leave right after Christmas because I needed to get a laser treatment on my eye. Nothing critical, just clearing out some film behind the cataract lens. Then we had snow and ice, so we didn’t leave until 30 December. We made it only to Lakeside Casino Campground in Osceola, IA to get the rig dewinterized and filled up with water. The campground has definitely had better days, but it is open all year and in a convenient location for getting things set for the trip.

Bad weather was dogging us, so instead of the two days we planned on to Oklahoma City, we pushed through the 500+ miles in one day. We decided we would much rather be stuck two or three days there rather than somewhere along the road. Good thing because we made it just before very cold weather with sleet and ice! And guess what else we found wrong with the rig? The thermostatically controlled outlet for the wet bay stopped working, and we didn’t have good luck with temps going to mid single digits. Kevin tried some other options like an incandescent trouble light and a heating pad, but we had frozen water by the morning of 2 January. Sigh. I looked at Kevin and said “I want to go south!” So we did. We chose to leave OKC and headed to Abilene, TX. By noon we had water again, and by 3:00 or so we were set up at the KOA. Nice place. While we aren’t far off I-20, I don’t hear the traffic.

We decided to stay 2 nights in Abilene to throughly warm ourselves up. Today we went to the Frontier Texas Museum, and it was fabulous! It has multi-media interpretive displays showing the viewpoints and experiences of the natives and the Anglos. Lots of fascinating immersive exhibits, and I highly, highly recommend it. I also got a bunch of equilateral triangles cut with my Accuquilt for use as what I call “mindless sewing”, an easy way to sew while traveling. I also have a 4” Drunkard’s Path die along with a bunch of fat quarters of fabric to cut. I will use the scraps from that to make more triangles later. The DP definitely isn’t mindless, but I do really like the design. Hopefully I can get two lap quilts done by the time we get to the FMCA rally at the end of the March. They always collect quilts for a local charity in the area of the rally.

Tomorrow we are heading farther down the road, but only 200 miles so we stop ahead of some heavy winds. I promise to post more!

On the road again, but just a bit

We finally went camping again! On Wednesday we went to a local park that is a whopping 7 miles away – Big Woods County Park. It is a lovely place with long sites. Most are wide, but they have two rows of “buddy sites” where if you pull in correctly you will face the folks next door. Luckily we found a site that backed up on the bike route and lake. We were hoping to dewinterize the motorhome, but the water wasn’t going to be turned on u til Thursday. Whoops! We stayed at home for the night and went back on Thursday to dewinterize. We got everything set up except the water softener which we forgot at home.

We were doing this to have the three oldest grandchildren out – twin girls, 11, and a boy, 7. We picked them up at lunch after a soccer game on Saturday, ate some take out pizza, then went to the camper. It was much colder than the forecast had shown when we set it up, so I felt bad we couldn’t do the bike riding we wanted to do. A windchill of low 40s just didn’t appeal to me. We left the kittens at home, thinking an introduction to both the motorhome and three children would be a bit much! We did have a lot of fun even in the cold temps. There was a nice playground, a sand spot at the edge of the lake to build sand castles, and a nice fire pit. We made layered green chili chicken enchiladas in a Dutch oven and campfire biscuits on Saturday night. Sunday morning had monkey bread in the motorhome oven along with eggs and fruit. They said they wanted to do it again, so I call that a success!

We picked up the kittens after we dropped off the kids, and they adjusted faster than I expected. Luna was thrilled we could open up the screen door. Don’t worry; behind the grill is a screen!

I didn’t get a picture of Minnie because she was either running around like crazy or hiding out, her two favorite things to do.

The weather was so absolutely gorgeous while we were packing up on Monday that we decided to stay an extra day. We road our bikes around the lake and some of the nearby trails, soaked up sun, and generally had a wonderful start to the camping season.

See how pretty our “backyards was?

Once we finally got packed up, we decided to drive to Cedar Rapids to get the motorhome washed. It hasn’t had a bath since July, and it was in dire need! We just don’t have a place to wash it ourselves, so we went to a newer truck wash, AFCS Truck Wash. Astonishingly no one was in line in front of us! They did a good job, and it was well worth the $75 it cost. As we drove out, there were 2 motorhomes and a semi truck in line behind us, so we really were lucky.

Next trip might be Mother’s Day, or it might be a warmer weather overnight with grandkids at a different campground. Time will tell. We take off for the summer right after Memorial Day – YEAH!

 

 

Death Valley catchup (plus Iowa things)

Warning – this has a lot of time and variety in it!

To catch up on Death Valley and surroundings, we stayed at Sunset until the morning of 20 February. Since the cellular data service ixps extremely limited there, we were pleased to make full use of the monthly WiFi pass at the resort. $60 gives you 30 days of high speed Internet on up to two devices! I tried to get some pictures from Kevin’s fancy camera of the Funeral Mountains to the east of us, but I wasn’t terribly successful. The mountains are made up of rocks so old and confused they are called “Funeral Chaos”. Twisted, faulted, squeezed, faulted again – they show amazing patterns. I just couldn’t get a good picture though, so I guess I will try again next time.

Searching for phone service and a place to hunker down to care for Lily, we ended up at the Needles KOA. We have stayed there a few times before. The sites are big enough, and there is a resident group of quail that I find adorable. I tried to get a picture of the 20 or so who ran across the road as we were checking in, but they were too fast for me. You can hear them clicking away in the mornings if no one has taken their dogs out yet.

As I said in the previous post, we headed back to Iowa as soon as we knew about Lily’s condition. We stayed at Lavaland RV Park in Grants, NM the first night after we left Needles KOA, Tuesday 23 February. They had a nice brewery that concentrated on porters and stouts, my favorites. Sadly their kitchen was closed, but we did order some pizza delivered to the brewery. Nice to eat pizza and beer inside an almost empty place. Our next stop was Big Texan RV Park in Amarillo. It is a mile or so away from the famously advertised restaurant, but it was an easy in and out spot. We made it to the Wellington KOA on Thursday, much nicer than the dreadful place we stayed heading to Arizona in December. We then headed to the Lakeside Casino RV Park in Osceola, IA for our last night. It isn’t very suitable for big rigs since the turns are tight and the sites pretty short, but we found a spot we could fit into. It wasn’t the one the check in folks had us in initially, but with only 5-6 other rigs we had our choice. It is close enough to home to make it a good spot to winterize the rig, and thanks what we did on Saturday morning before heading out. We are pretty good at it these days, and it too, less than an hour. The ice maker is always the hardest!

We had gotten COVID vaccination appointments on Sunday, 28 February, and we had our follow up vaccination yesterday (Pfizer). I am anxiously awaiting my 2 week time for feeling comfortable again! We are having two of the kids and their families over for Easter (another son heads to his cabin every Easter), and I am soooooo wanting to hug them all!

Kevin’s big job this time was installing new LiFePO4 batteries. He chose three 200 amp hour LifeBlue batteries with their integrated heater. Lithium’s don’t charge below 35 degrees or so, and we stay in those temps too often to not get the more expensive heater version. He needed a new solar controller, and luckily this one has Bluetooth so it is much easier to see what is happening. They see to work fine, and I am anxious to try them out on a real trip, not just sitting outside the storage unit. Our solar system will be able to punch more power into the batteries because it won’t be throttled by the lead acid charging curve.

We have been doing work on the house too. We bought a pergola to go on our very hot west side deck. It has a nice adjustable shade cover that will help with keeping the house cooler too. We even bought a propane fire pit to put under it!

Plenty of room for two
Ignore the straps scattered around

i also finished the three quilt tops I sewed while we were out. I got them quilted pretty quickly, but I procrastinated on the binding because it is the task I like least. I got them into the wash yesterday though.

The first two were made from a layer cake I bought on sale. I love the water lilies and dragonfly theme.

Bound and backed with a green Grunge fabric
Bound and backed with a light turquoise fabric with yellow dots

This one was way outside my comfort zone! I just don’t “do” scrappy well. It will make a fun ”I Spy” quilt for some child though.

Mostly mask left overs – very scrappy!

Enough for now. More going on at home, but I will leave that for later.

Christmas preparation and aftermath

The truffles were great, best I have made in a few years. The sugared pecans were a huge hit, and I have had to make two more batches. My oldest three grandchildren, 6 and 10, joined me for a cookie decorating extravaganza. I think I made too many cookies!

I made about 10 dozen cookies, way too many!
Notice the fully covered table and fully aproned cookie decorators

Our Christmas cantata at church was a roaring success. The choir sounded fantastic, and the instrumentalists (two violins, viola, cello, trumpet, flute, and a keyboardist filling in for an oboe) brought it to the next level. We might not do as challenging of music as the choir in Utah, but the sound was actually just as good. I guess it does help to be in a college town with a strong music program!

The two oldest girls also came over for a crafting afternoon before Christmas. We made Christmas ornaments with vinyl decorations, decorated multi-purpose boxes with vinyl, and used HTV vinyl applied to shirts they brought with them. We were busy for 4 1/2 hours, and I was exhausted! The girls really did have fun, and they were operating the vinyl cutter independently before we were done. Too bad I didn’t take pictures of the shirts or boxes. We even made a set for the younger brother who just wasn’t quite up to the afternoon.

Christmas was held at my oldest son’s house, and it was also a success. I had three of the four children there plus spouses and most of the grandchildren. Luckily my son has a big house, though we didn’t stay with them (we live only a few minutes away). My contribution to food was all the makings for a pot roast, made in the Instant Pot, plus carrots and red potatoes for roasting. It was delicious, as was the ham and sides made by my daughter in law on the previous day.

I also got some sewing done! The quilt I made for the motorhome shrunk more than I expected, and it was about an inch short on all sides, I added a new 4” border to make up for it. Of course I couldn’t find any fabric of the same design, but I found some that coordinates well enough. It was a real pain, but I have it done except for the binding. I always serge the edge of the my quilt before binding, so it is good for the bed now if I don’t get the binding finished. I plan on getting the binding cut and pieced tomorrow, but I may or may not do the top stitching before the trip. I’d rather spend the time cleaning up the house and getting the laundry all done.

The bad thing that happened was with Lily, our cat. We had planned a preventative ultrasound and a tooth cleaning, but the vet found a small mass with a sore on her leg while shaving it before an IV. The vet had removed a basal cell cancer from Lily’s neck earlier in the year, so she was concerned. They called me, and we agreed to excise the small mass while she was already under sedation. Luckily the mass was benign, but we had one very, very unhappy cat for the almost two weeks it took for her wound to heal.

She already looked like a bit of a bobble head doll because of the neck skin removed in her earlier surgery, but the cone rubbed off even more hair! She will fill it out in a few months though. She is somewhere between 11 and 14 years old, and she has started losing enough weight we have moved her off her diet food to a more traditional senior diet. She had gotten above 10 pounds a few years back, and she should be about 8 pounds. She finally made it to 8 pounds, 2 ounces so she can go back to regular food. She does like her food!

We are now packing up for the next trip. We leave Iowa on Wednesday, New Yearks Day, and pick up the motorhome west of Oklahoma City. We will stay there a few days visiting family and restocking the refrigerator. We have reservations at Big Bend National Park beginning 9 January so we have quite a bit of time to get there. When we were on our way to Iowa, i wasn’t sure I wanted another long trip, but I am definitely looking forward to traveling again.

 

Thanksgiving and preparations for Christmas

Be prepared for a long post since it has been so long since my last post. I just don’t seem to get around to putting a post together when we are at the “sticks and bricks.” When I last posted, we weren’t quite at Thanksgiving. We had dinner on Wednesday because my daughter worked on Thursday. I used the Alton Brown brining recipe, and it was phenomenal! Absolutely the best turkey I have ever made. Even the white meat was good, and that is from a dedicated dark meat person. I made too many pies, but I have finally mastered a good pie crust made in the food processor. I splurged last summer on a Breville food processor, and it is phenomenal. Mashed sweet potatoes with butter and just a touch of brown sugar, mashed white potatoes, and braised green beans in the Instant Pot finished up dinner for seven adults and four children. The baby wasn’t interested 😁.

It tasted better than it looks.

I have also been sewing a little. I made some stuff toys for the almost 3 year old grandson, but I forgot to take pictures. I tried making the baby granddaughter a pair of knit harem pants off a free pattern. The baby is very long though, so they needed to be longer. I will adapt the pattern before I make it again. They were just a trial run made with scraps I had around.

I guess these are the latest style

I have also been doing some vinyl work. I made a onesie to go with the pants that said “The Snuggle is Real” (forgot a picture), and a tshirt for almost 3 year old with reindeer names on them, both with heat transfer vinyl. I also did some Christmas ornaments with Oracal 651, a regular adhesive vinyl.

Cute, isn’t it?

I have an assortment of them with different designs, and I have more I am going to do.

Kevin was busy outside. Looks pretty good! He has also ordered a lighted nativity scene that will sit on the porch. Kevin likes his lights.

Lights on the house and tree plus some deer and trees

We have also had some challenges. Our cat, Lily, had her teeth cleaned and a growth removed from her leg. She had a basal skin cancer removed a year and a half ago, so I am worried. It will be a few more days before we get the pathology report. The other really challenging news is my son’s dog, Lexi, who used to belong to us, is in final renal failure. She will cross the bridge on Saturday. She had a good life at 15 years, and she only had serious health problems in the last year. My son is devastated. He has had Lexi as his best bud for a number of years beginning when he moved to Montana for grad school 8-9 years ago.

Enough of bad news. My kitchen is also preparing for Christmas. I also made about 120-150 rolled sugar cookies. My oldest grandchildren will be here Saturday to decorate them. I might have gotten carried away though! I made some wonderful sugared pecans and the chocolate truffles will be finished tomorrow. They are a multi day process. I haven’t decided if I will make pressed cookies too, but I am thinking about it. I have an interesting ginger recipe that I would like to try. The Christmas music is also going full bore. I have been to a number of rehearsals for our church Christmas concert on Sunday afternoon. It is a variation of the traditional Lessons and Carols service.

Kevin and I were lucky enough to go to a production of Cabaret by the local university. It was a very moving show, and the ending was shocking and disquieting. As we left in silence we walked by a container of shoes, a nod to the Holocaust that many of the characters experienced. I did not expect such a professional show by a mid-level college; my error!

I will try to be more regular in my posts going forward.

Home again

No pictures for this post. We spent Tuesday night in Albuquerque at the American RV Park. Nice place, but close to the highway. Luckily it was more of a continuous hum rather than intermittent jake brakes. Wednesday we headed rest of the way across New Mexico and all of Texas. It was long enough that Kevin got to drive some, a rare thing. We ended up at a tiny RV park 1 mile into Oklahoma called Double D. It was a very inexpensive park since we used our Passport America membership to get it half off. Otherwise I wouldn’t recommend it. There were maybe 2 spots that had the trees trimmed back enough for us, and they were having water problems so only an electrical hookup was available. It would be fine for most travel trailers or small motorhomes.

We got up early and headed to Yukon, a suburb of Oklahoma City. Maverick Run RV Park is quite nice with roomy sites and clear views. It was quite empty this time of year, but I understand it is really busy in the warmer parts of the year. We spent a full day getting the motorhome ready to go into storage. We are going to live dangerously and keep the refrigerator turned on, hoping the solar keeps the batteries charged enough. That mean cleaning out everything that wasn’t sealed, just in case. Kevin cleaned the tanks as well as he could, and I got the last 4 loads of laundry done. I even got the sheets and towels all washed! It will be nice to come back to a clean place.

Both of us were excited to head home, and we were up early on Saturday. Kevin and I winterized the motorhome, dropped it in the storage lot, and headed on the 600 mile trip to Iowa by a little after 9:00 am. We made it home around 8:00 pm The house seems huge, and Lily seemed quite impressed. She kept running up and down stairs, playing with the stuffed mice Kevin gave her. The housekeeper had come on Friday, and the place is as spotless as she usually leaves it. I doubt it will stay that way long!

So far we have gone through 4 months of mail (!), renewed car and utility trailer tags, had dinner with our oldest son and his family, lunch with the second son and daughter, and talked to our third son. I also picked up more allergy drops and got my Viking sewing machine looked at. Oh, and I had a birthday with a lovely dinner! Now I am in the midst of planning Thanksgiving dinner (planned for Wednesday) along with practicing for our church choir concert in a few weeks. Enough to keep busy, for sure!

And we are off!

We baptized lovely little Callyn Rose on Sunday. She was quite well behaved (slept through the entire thing!) and very adorable.

We had a big family dinner at a good restaurant, then went home to finish packing. Monday we went to the Upper Iowa River Resort outside Dorchester, IA. It is a fairly rustic campground in a lovely river valley with the Upper Iowa River forming one of the boundaries of the campground. They have a huge spring fed pond with a sandy beach shore. We reserved two sites, one for the motorhome, and one for our tiny tent trailer where my son in law and grandson slept.

Grandson looked for lots of alternative to going to bed.
Callyn is a happy young lady, and she has learned to stick her tongue out.
Gotta have some play time

 

As you can probably guess, the campground isn’t exactly “big rig friendly”, but we managed to get settled in ok. Of course no cell service, so we had a lot of family time, and I read a lot of books. The first night folks in the cabin you can see kept waking us up until 2:30 am! I complained, and they must have been talked to, because the campground was great the rest of the time. This is the time of year Iowa is at its very greenest, and it was lovely.

The kids went home on Thursday evening, and we left Friday morning. We are spending the night at Countryside Campground outside Askov, MN not far off I-35. I definitely don’t recommend the place. Tons of loud family groups, but that is almost expected in campgrounds with a huge pool and a bar. The problem is the sites are very poorly built with the gravel being not providing even a single layer of solid surface. The first site we tried to get level 3 times, but the place was so soft that we sunk in each time, triggering the “excessive slope” warning. We moved to another site, and even then had to face forward instead of backing in as we should have. It was just too unlevel, even with multiple blocks under the tires and levelers. We have a lot more adjustability in leveling the front of the coach than the back. Oh well, it is just one night, and we are getting the laundry all done!

Tomorrow we head for Ely, MN and our campsite on Fall Lake for a week.

More sewing and lots of doctors

Sadly we didn’t get all the business handled in Stillwater before we needed to leave. We still have some mineral rights to transfer into our trust, but the attorney did get the land itself transferred. We did have time to go to Sand Spring, OK to a lovely little heirloom sewing shop, Delicate Stitches. I found some more lace, entredeux, and a gorgeous Swiss embroidery I decided to use for the edge of the baptism gown. We left Stillwater a Friday morning, and we spent the night at Clinton Lake again. Lovely place!

See how big the site is? Long enough to easily park the Jeep behind us too.

Then it was back to wet, wet Iowa. I sewed quite a bit. I decided to sew the skirt next because of that beautiful Swiss embroidery. Heirloom sewing isn’t hard, but it is picky and slow. I did finish the skirt lace work though. I made a slip in bright pink to shadow through the fine batiste and the laces. 

Isn’t that edging gorgeous? It is about 6” wide. The entire skirt panel is about 55” wide by 30” long. I will need to trim the width just a bit to even things up, but it will be a very full gathered skirt for the gown.

I stopped by my daughter’s house to measure the baby against the pattern pieces for the bodice. I think I will make the bodice about 1” wider, and I was also able to figure out what size of placket to use so it can fit over her head easily (3” if you are curious). I will start on the bodice tomorrow. The lacework will be pretty simple, just 3 rows of vertical lace. Then I can start the real construction.

I did my allergy testing today in Cedar Rapids. It turns out I am allergic to corn and dust. Not a good combination in Iowa! I will be starting immunotherapy sublingual drops in a couple of weeks. I will need to do that for a number of years, but it should help. I am also going to be on Flonase, Singulair, and Zyrtec, or at least their generic equivalents. The doctor also gave me a Rx for a steroid step down pack if I do come down with another dreadful sinus infection. Hopefully I can keep it under control. I am so tired of getting these sinus infections two or three times a year.

Oh, and I have become addicted to streaming BritBox and Acorn TV. All my favorite British, Canadian, and Australian shows seem to be available. I will listen to them on the iPad while sewing. And my new little sewing machine, a Viking Opal 650, is sewing all this like a champ!

On the road again

We are on the road again. We left this afternoon a little after noon, and we are spending the night at the Lakeside Casino RV park in Osceola, IA (south of Des Moines a bit). We are heading to the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival, and this is not quite half way. Nice enough, and less noisy than I thought it would be due to a nice berm between the campground and the highway. There is also a nice little pond with a lot of frogs doing their best to mask the highway sounds. I actually remembered to take a picture of our site though it was a little late.

I did finish Callyn’s quilt. It turned out really cute. The flowers are each about 3 1/2” in diameter.

Basically a big piece of lovely fabric with a border
I stitched radiating flower centers with white then outlined each flower with the appropriate color.
A big meander stitch in the border. Binding finished with a feather stitch.

Since we had only been at home a few days, it was easy to pack for this trip except for collecting the supply list for my quilting classes. Why do instructors ask for the impossible? One of my classes wanted 2” painter’s Tape. It turns out that such a thing doesn’t exist, according to the paint store I ended up at after searching all the big box stores. The biggest ones available are just under 2” and almost 3”. I bought the 1.88”. I also had to search for rubber cement. I am taking an intermediate free motion quilting class and a class on appliqué techniques. Ought to be interesting.

Updating the house plus hanging around the new baby and her mom

We ended up staying at Squaw Creek County Park in Marion for a week. On Sunday, 19 May, we moved to Pleasant Creek State Recreation Area. It is a lovely place, and we were lucky to score one of the six non-reservation sites that would fit us. We literally drove into the campground while the previous occupant was pulling out, so we quickly signed up for the site and out the lawn chairs out. Then we headed back to Squaw Creek to pack up the motorhome. I really do like how fast the Sani-Con dumps the black and gray tanks. Kevin likes how clean the process is, and he says it is one of the best plumbing updates he has done.

My daughter, her husband, her son, and the new baby girl came out quite a few times. DD says it is awfully nice to get out of the house but be in a safe environment. Seems like Callyn liked it too. She was up above her birth weight at one week old!

We did end up going back to the house some. We had trees planted (they look lovely), we had the deck stained, and we had some electrical work done. The electrical work included adding a big fan in the living room. Our living room faces pretty much straight west, and it gets hot in the summer afternoons. We did put a good sized tree there, but the room needed a fan.

A 60” blade was definitely not too big for the recessed ceiling

The other electrical work was to add a bunch of 4-plex outlets added at waist level in my craft room. I was tired of having to move shelving to reach the low level outlets that were there. We also added a new 20 amp line for some of the 4-plex outlets. Now I will have more flexibility with the heat press and irons I use! Used to be I had a single 15 amp circuit for the whole room. If I accidentally left the iron on and turned on the heat press, I tripped the breaker. This will be much nicer. Of course, to do the work every cabinet and shelving unit had to be moved to the middle of the room. It will be a pain to get everything back in its place, but worth it in the end. Most of the things I plug in are very low power – sewing machines, Silhouette cutter, PC, radio, etc.

I have two walls with these lovely outlets

Kevin also had the electrician install an outdoor outlet to plug in a camper that shows the front of the garage and the driveway. He added another camera in the utility room that shows the heater, the water heater, the water softener, and the sump pump. With us being gone so much, it is confidence-building to know the state of the systems, particularly the sump pump. We can also check the temperature in the house. I certainly like modern connected houses!

I am still working on my granddaughter’s quilt. I have done so much quilting on it, I am bored. I just have to plow through though since I really, really want to get it done next week. I have to get started on the baby’s baptism which is in late July. Still working on a pattern for that though.