Quilting – TooBusyForWork

Out of Quartzsite for this year

We left Quartzsite on Monday, 23 March, planning on gradually working our way home to Iowa. This is the picture Kevin took on Sunday night of the sunset. It was taken through a long lens, and then it had be reduced in quality some, but it is an impressive sunset view from our campsite.

We first went to Lake Havasu City, spending 4 nights at the Elks Lodge there. I went to a “Staycation” with the Havasu Quilters guild Monday through Wednesday. The problem was that I was still very, very sore from my back spasms. I didn’t get nearly as much done as I intended. I finally sewed up the quilt block for March’s Block of the Month, but I am not very happy with it. It is not only not my best work, it isn’t even my average work. Oh well, it will do though. I made some little scrubbers for gifts from a kit I have been hauling around for a couple of years. They will be cute in a gift package of a mug and hot chocolate mix (the fabric is hot chocolate related). I also finished all the 8 star blocks I needed for my Christmas quilt, but I didn’t get much more accomplished. All day Monday back would spasm for 30-60 seconds while I just tried to breathe through it. It really sucked. Tuesday was better with no spasms, just soreness. Wednesday the pain was bad. The staycation is normally a treat with lots of good companionship, good food, and lots of sewing time.

After LHC, we headed north to Monticello, UT. We spent one night at the NavajoLand RV Park in Tuba City, AZ on the way. It was decent but not really set up for a rig our size. In Monticello we are staying at the Western RV Park. It is another older campground where we barely fit, but they obviously just redid their sewer system with a lot of fresh gravel on all the sites.

The reason we are in Monticello is because Kevin bought a new side by side! The shop is in Grand Junction, CO, and we drove the truck with the old RZR in the back from Monticello to there. Why? Because when we leave here tomorrow we are headed back to Monument Valley, UT and then to AZ to complete all the paperwork. We had planned on picking it up after we left Monument Valley, but they had rebates that expire tomorrow. But first a bit about the trip up to Moab on the way to I-70. I don’t think we had ever driven the road headed north, though we have done it southbound a few times. It is a glorious drive. There was haze and we had a schedule to meet so only a couple of pictures, and those were through the windshield. The first was the lovely La Sal mountains south of Moab. Lots of snow on their peaks.

And then we started getting to the fabulous rocky outcroppings as we got nearer to Moab. I loved this one the most, and I named it “Haystack.”

And here is Kevin in the brand new rig! It is a Polaris RZR 900 Trail Sport. We got a very good trade in, rebates, and additional deals because they had a bunch of 2024 rigs still in stock. It is a 900cc engine with 75hp and real doors that don’t require contortions to get in the rig. Even the seats are more comfortable. Now he gets to keep the UPS driver busy bringing all the accessories to make it street legal and comfortable. Things like roofs, windshields (front and back), mirrors, and storage boxes are all aftermarket. Kevin has a great time shopping for them, and putting them all on will keep him busy when we get home. I can hardly wait until we can take it out on the trails!

We leave tomorrow for Monument Valley. I will post as we finish that portion of the trip.

Edited to add: We had an absolutely fabulous late lunch at Bella Thai in Moab. It is probably the best Thai food I have ever had! I wanted to make sure I had it in the post because I look back a such info later on.

Quartzsite Redux

We are staying at a different location in the Tyson Wash LTVA than we were the last time we were here. The crowds are gone, so we moved a bit closer to the entrance. We back up to a wash, and there have been quite a few birds coming by – quail, hummingbirds, doves, and some other ones I don’t know. A friend has a trail cam, and I am definitely going to buy one before we head out for the summer. She puts it out every night, and she finds lots of cool creatures. One time a bobcat came by! Not here luckily.

We definitely have done a bit of riding since we arrived and my back has improved. I am still taking it easy, so no long, rough group rides. We enjoyed this view from the “Q” mountain (someone put a rock art Q on it). I have posted other pictures from a nearby spot, and the reduction in campers is significant.

One of the interesting things in the area is this old mill just outside the town. It is always fun to wander around it.

We took one 55 mile jaunt out past the famous Quartzsite golf course. You are advised to bring colored ball, orange being the most popular. The 9 hold course has marked holes with flags .There always seem to be people on the course.

We also took a side trip to the old Scott’s Lead Well. There is an old corral, a broken watering tank, and water storage tanks. They aren’t working anymore, so the fish and game folks installed a new wildlife guzzler. The tank is underground, and it has a well to pump. If the water gets low, they come out and fill the underground tank. When we were there we startled a bunch of birds away. The video shows the ride up to the old tanks, and the still picture shows the guzzler and the old tanks in the background. As usual, click on the link to get the video.

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Sadly the desert will filled with trash. We collected 1 1/2 sacks of small pieces of garbage since we couldn’t take any big stuff. This is a burned out fifth wheel someone had taken out to a lonely spot and torched. Probably an insurance scam: “Oh officer, the rig was in perfect shape before it was stolen!” Disgusting..

This is a memorial to a local bicyclist. The bicycle was actually stolen a few months back, but they replaced it.

It is still very, very dry, but the ocotillos have started blooming even though there isn’t enough moisture for their leaves to come out. They are among my favorite desert plants.

Our ride took us out to the Cyprus Copperstone Mine. It is an open pit gold mine that was very profitable. Now they are planning to dig underground in the same disturbed area for more gold. We didn’t get too close; they have gates that are locked. The pit is off to the right.

On the way back we hit the sandhills that are northeast of town. So many people think Arizona is just sand dunes, but they are actually pretty uncommon. Here is a short sample.

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I have been sewing some as I recover from the back problems. This is what I am calling “Midnight in the Desert.” I am in love with the colors of this, and I really like the way the circular star pattern shows up as a secondary design. I was planning on sandwiching and quilting it here, but I have decided I really want to get the intersections super flat with the LaraStar ironing system I have at home. The colors in the first picture are accurate, but those in the second picture are quite washed out. It does show the fabric design of the print though. I have also sewn a few hundred Christmas squares together, but I won’t show that one for a while yet.

Tonight Kevin got a great picture of a doze camouflaged in the brush. It was easy to hear him/her, but it took a bit of work to see.

And no post in the southwest is really complete without fabulous sunrise …

…. and sunset pictures.

We are heading to Lake Havasu on Sunday. It will be getting hot here – upper 80s into low 90s – so it is time to head in for electricity and air conditioning.

After Death Valley – KOFA National Wildlife Refuge

We left Death Valley on 1 March and went back to the Needles Elks Lodge. We did the necessary tasks of laundry and grocery shopping, then we headed to our favorite spot in KOFA along King Road. This spot is so pretty, sitting between two rugged mountains. Except for a friend that pulled in a couple of days after we set up, there was nobody within 100 yards.

The first picture is on the north side of our campsite.

This is just a bit to the side, just as the sun was almost gone.

We did go back to Cibola National Wildlife Refuge one day. This time we took the highway, and our friends took the 4WD road. We beat them by only 5 minutes or so. The paddle cactus blow was just starting to bloom in the garden there. I think it is a Beavertail cactus, but I am not foolproof on identification.

At least some of the cranes were still there, but a lot have already headed south.

There is so many places to ride the RZR here! The landscape is generally more vegetated than in Quartzsite, so here is a sample.

One of the key things the Fish and Wildlife Service does is maintain watering spots, known as tanks, for the wildlife. Here is a natural catchment area that has been enhanced. In prolonged dry spells, they will bring large water trucks in and fill the basins. I am quite impressed; the trail in was rough and narrow.

Sadly I came down with a massive back spasm while we were here that resulted in a trip to the ER in Yuma. Some heavy pain meds (400mg Gabapentin, an injection of an NSAID, and a Lidocaine patch), and I was able to walk out. But I sure didn’t do much the next few days! It was over a week before I felt 75% recovered, so we didn’t get to ride as much as we wanted.

We headed back to Quartzsite on Monday, 10 March. I finally got some more sewing done. Here is my in-process inspector saying I better get going!

Dark Sky Festival and West Side Road

The Dark Sky Festival was fabulous as usual. We attended the keynote addresses in the evening, and Kevin attended an astrophotography workshop that got his photography drive going. I also enjoyed the outside exhibits from the organizations participating. I am particularly interested in the autonomous rovers of all type – wheeled, winged, or snaked. The wheeled ones are obvious to most, and we have probably all see the helicopters too, but they actually had a fabulous 20’ long prototype of a snake-like “EELS” (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) designed to go into and come out of crevasses to be found on a moon of Saturn. I even got to drive it for a minute or two until two little girls came up who needed the experience more than I did.

(Click to see EELS in action)

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Monday we decided to drive the West Side Road, a dirt/gravel road west of the main salt basin. There are some fabulous views of snow-covered Telegraph Peak from the road. Telegraph Peak is 11,000’+ high, and is usually snow covered in the winter. It is such an amazing contrast to the warm desert below. Here are the views as we drove the road.

There are lots of historic sites along the road. Tule Spring, Shorty’s Well, and others come from the buried Amargosa River flowing underground. There are also human related sites like where the original Death Valley 49ers were stranded for over a month until their rescuers arrived. There is also an interesting gravesite for some early prospectors. Shorty Harris was famous for being involved in many of the gold mines in the area, but specified his grave should say “Here lies Shorty Harris, a single blanket jackass prospector.”

Gravesite of Shorty Harris and his friend Jim Dayton

Last year we couldn’t drive the West Side Road because it had large areas of washout from the historic rains that gave us back Lake Stanley for a while. I posted pictures of the fabulous sight last year. The salt is fresh here, and since the road sees orders of magnitude less traffic than the famous Badwater Basin area, you can see the way the salt pan looks before it has been walked on by tens of thousands of people. The salt begins as a polygon shape.

In Some areas the crystals build upon each other. These formations are 2-3” tall.

Eventually the crystals stop forming and get partially covered by the never-ending Death Valley Dust. This is an older crystalline area that developed before last year’s rains.

As you continue on the road you will eventually get to the back side of the famous Badwater Basin salt pan. It is truly amazing.

Those tiny dots are people. The water is from springs that are almost always present.

I have also been doing quite a bit of sewing, though I don’t have much to show for it yet. I am putting together block after block for both of the quilts I am working on, and I am making good progress. I also cut out a new bag for the folding chairs we use on the RZR. The existing bags are nylon, and the sun has really destroyed them. My finger went right through one bag when I pulled it out for measurements! Kevin has been playing with his 3D printer and the telescope.

We also did a bunch of housekeeping tasks. We dumped our tanks and got water yesterday, so we did some laundry. It has been getting into the mid 90s in the afternoon, and I like my AC with those temps! We have been running the generator from 2-5 to cool off the last two days, doing the laundry at the same time. I think we have decided to leave on Saturday and head somewhere back into Arizona, though we haven’t decided where. We will almost surely go to a private campground to have electricity for the AC.

Quilting and riding in Quartzsite

People I meet sometimes think I am an extrovert because I engage in conversation well. However I am actually just an outgoing introvert. I am mentally exhausted by the last 3 weeks of people. I really like the group who showed up for the rally, and keeping things a bit organized is just what I do, but my oh my, I needed some “me” time. I have done it, finally.

But first another trip on the RZR. We went on Colorado River Indian Tribe (CRIT) land on Saturday with 27 other rigs. It was supposed to be a short ride, but with that many rigs it took a lot longer than anticipated. It didn’t help that 10 rigs got lost on a turn. Of course they were found again, but it took about 45 minutes to get them all rounded up and back with the group. Interesting ride though!

The first video gives a good feel for the ups and downs. The GoPro smooths things out so much that the ride is deceptive; it was rough!

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The second video is just a nice view of the area.

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I also took some photos of the cabins we visited. I didn’t spend much time on good pictures because I have a bunch from previous visits. The area is just full of mines – big ones, medium ones, and small little glory holes. Lots of gold and silver taken out of this area.

This is where we had lunch. I hadn’t ever been here before. Fascinating rock formations.

I also did a lot of sewing. I am participating in a Block of the Month Club with a quilt store, Inspired to Sew in Cedar Rapids, IA. Luckily the classes are all virtual so I can follow along easily. I finished my first block quite late on 2 February, but I kind of made up for it by finishing February’s block today. Here they are. Note they are big blocks – 18” finished.

The BOM is from Moda, and it is hundreds of 5” charm squares, all in solids. Each month is in a different color palette. The kit didn’t include the 6 yards of background fabric, so everyone chose their own. I chose to go with an Amish-inspired look, and I think the colors just glow. I have also finished a few dozen blocks of Turkey Giblets that will be eventually a donation quilt (I think). Still a long way to go on that one. Tomorrow I start on my Christmas quilt again. Lots to do there!

Busy in Quartzsite

We have now been here for a bit over a week. After the fun SxS ride I posted about last time, we have just been hanging around trying to avoid the wind. It has been bad with gusts of 35-40 which is a lot in this open, dusty country. As you can see from this picture Kevin captured of me, I have done quite a bit of relaxing. Seems like the cats had the same idea. Those recliners are really comfy!

We ended up making a day of it in Lake Havasu City on Thursday. We picked up Amazon packages we had delivered to Parker, AZ on the way, bought and ate one of the ham and cheese croissants from Stark Bakery in Parker, did laundry at the fabulous Modern Laundry in LHC (cleanest and nicest we have ever been to), did grocery shopping, got my hair cut, and picked up 14 yards of fabric at Fabrics Unlimited.

Fabrics Unlimited is a really nice shop. They sell HandiQuilter machines and supplies plus Accuquilt products in addition to a big selection of quilt fabrics. They also have some specialty products for bag making, but that isn’t something I have ever really been interested in. I bought 6 yards of a black background fabric for the Moda Block of the Month I am starting on, two coordinating 3 yard pieces for a new quilt using the Turkey Trot Accuquilt die I bought before Christmas, and 2 yards of duck canvas for making new bags for the folding chairs we use on the RZR. While I was there the owner told me about a Zoom class they were having the next day (Friday) with a national HQ educator about quilting feathers. I was excited! I have always wanted to learn how to quilt feathers, and I haven’t ever been very successful. They had a sitdown quilting machine I could use (the rest of the class used long arm machines), so I signed up. That meant another 3 1/2 hour round trip the next day, but it was worth it. I used up three big pieces of quilt sandwich (they supplied that and the thread) practicing various feather types. I think I finally caught on! Some of the options I like better than others, but I now feel I could use feathers on a real quilt.

I know there is a lot of fuzz and some chalk marks, but you can ignore those. I am going to bind these and use them as cat quilts for Minnie’s hiding spot behind the recliner.

We are also getting ready for the rally I am hosting in a week. I am an active participant in the RVForum.net forums, and we always used to hold a rally during the big RV show week (aka “The Big Tent”). Sadly the previous rally master died a couple of years ago, so I stepped up to host it. Kevin made cool signs as turn indicators. There are a lot of roads out in the desert! Give a man a 3D printer, and you can get all kinds of neat stuff you never thought you’d need!

The sign is maybe 6”x4”, made on his 3 color printer

I have been cutting and piecing some, not just buying fabric. On Saturday I cut about 680 2.5” squares from the Christmas fat quarter bundle my kids bought for me. The quilt will be made up of 8 star blocks and 40 sixteen patch blocks, using pretty much all the fabrics in the bundle. I will still have enough for a pieced border if I choose to add it. I always cut more pieces than I need when making a scrap quilt so I have some extras to adjust colors and in case I mess up a few. Today I have been making “twosies” – sewing two squares together. I have well over half of the squares sewn, and I will probably finish the twosies later today. Then I start making “foursies” – sewing the twosies together. I won’t start that until next week. But here is the current state of twosies and single block in the box I am using.

I love pretty much mindless sewing like this. I have been listing to an audio book in the background, and just sewing a huge chain of these. Maybe I will have some blocks in the next blog post. Or I might decide to cut out the blocks for the Turkey Trot quilt and take that to the Quilt Guild meeting on Tuesday. Decisions, decisions!

On the road again for winter 2024/2025 trip

We are now on the way to Quartzsite, AZ where we spend most of the winter. I haven’t been in the mood for much since my last post. I just had no energy, and I was taking 2 hour naps every day in addition to sleeping more than normal at night. To no one’s surprise except my PA, I had a thyroid problem. She increased my thyroid medication (I had half of my thyroid removed many years ago due to benign nodule), and I feel human again! Not enough to finish the sewing I had planned, but enough to prep for Christmas and the trip.

Last time I noted we were heading back early for a quilting class with Kaye England. She had this really complex block that needed precision piecing, and it was a challenge. I only completed 4 of the 16” blocks in 3 days, but that was with lots of discussions. I intend on using them for a runner on a sideboard. I picked colors that will go very well with my china.

Two blocks of my Kaye England class along with the china I use

We finally did get an opportunity to see the comet that came through. I think it was named something unpronounceable: Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. We were in Iowa, and usually the skies are too hazy to see faint objects, but this one was quite visible to the naked eye if you knew where to look. My iPhone picked it up pretty well.

I did get a bit of quilting done. I did two Hunter’s Star quilts, and I got both of them quilting before running into a wall. I really like the result of this circular quilting on an angular pattern.

The green Hunter’s Star went to a friend of my oldest son, and the pink one was chosen by my youngest granddaughter.

Kevin got a new 3D printer that is MUCH faster and significantly larger than his old ones. He has been having a ball with it. He made these two things for Halloween.

Christmas was also celebrated with some 3D items. He played around with his two color printer for this tree. The little lights made it interesting.

He made some villages. This was my favorite.

He finished with a really superb tree that we added to our nativity set displays. The lights are actually color chasing, and there is a remote you can use to change the colors. Pretty impressive. The buffet is the one my blue Kaye England table runner is going to go on eventually.

And my motorhome sewing area is all complete! Kevin added latches for the storage unit, and the fabulous red chair is one I bought at the Kaye England class. The low back fits my lumbar curve perfectly, and it is amazingly comfortable. I am absolutely thrilled with it. I tried it out with some sewing before Christmas (putting a bunch of blocks together into a small throw), and it works well. I will fine tune the setup this winter.

For my birthday I got a fat quarter bundle of some lovely Christmas fabrics, and I will be sewing that if I can decide on a design. I also have plans for a Turkey Trot quilt, and I am doing a Moda Block of the Month with a local quilt shop via Zoom. I will have plenty to do.

Since it is Christmas, I thought I’d show a picture of our Christmas lights. We added railings earlier in the fall, and putting lights on them was one of the primary reasons. It is much easier to drape railings with lights than putting them on the eaves!

And it wouldn’t be a good post without pictures of the cats. Luna climbed up on this chair at Thanksgiving as soon as we put it out before the family arrived. She was definitely saying, “MINE, MINE, ALL MINE!” Minnie, in her normal way, decided to play “There is no cat.” She loves hiding underneath things.

Minnie in today’s edition of “There is no cat.”

We actually left the afternoon of 27 December, staying in the Osceola, IA Walmart lot. Tonight we are staying in the Emporia, KS lot. And the next two nights we are staying at Arcadia Lake in Edmond, OK while we visit my sister. After that we will see what the weather is before deciding our final route to Arizona.

On the way home from Red Bay, AL

We are in our last night before getting to Iowa, spending the night (again) in the Walmart parking lot in Bowling Green, MO. We don’t have far to go tomorrow because we will be staying in Marion, IA while I take a quilting class with Kaye England! I am quite excited. I have followed her work for years, but I never anticipated being able to take a 3 day class with her. We are doing “Odette’s Journey” quilt using either Accuquilt cutting or some specialty angle cutters. While I have both, I know I will be using my beloved Accuquit. There is one odd piece I might have to use a ruler for, but I hope not. I will post my progress after the class.

We did get all kinds of stuff done in Red Bay. We had someone in Chris Berry’s shop remove our front TV (never used since our initial inspection!) and replace it with cabinets. They cut down the cabinet so it no longer is a head banger and put a shelf and doors on. Tiffin will no longer let you order custom cabinet doors, so the millwork is a bit different. I don’t think it matters overmuch though.

We also go our yearly motorhome service at Bay Diesel. They did fix a MIL engine light after discovering it was due to noise on a data line. The TPMS repeater Kevin had installed was noisy, and he had to move it to a new location. There were over 70,000 instances of the offending message LOL! We had already had it investigated, and we knew it wasn’t a big deal, but it is nice to drive the motorhome without a yellow caution light.

On Thursday we had Precision RV do a big inspection and preventative maintenance on the roof and slides. RV roofs have a lot of holes in them for things like vents and mountings, and Kevin just didn’t feel up to climbing on his belly all over the roof (I knew he was a smart man). They used 3 complete tubes of specialized caulking on the front cap seal where we had hail damage last year. Luckily we had no water damage, and all the rest of the roof looked good. We also had them clean out the undersides of the slides. Years ago we had some Corelle dishes break. While we got most of it, some small pieces had made it under the slide. With many years and many miles, they were completely pulverized into tiny pieces. Glad they got them out, and my slides don’t crackle as we open and close them any more.

Another thing we did was to remove the sofa in the motorhome and start converting that into a sewing area I can leave set up all the time! We are still figuring out the most efficient spot to put my sewing table, and we will be picking up a narrow storage cabinet before we head out after Christmas.

It’s not much to look at yet, but the black strap is the seat belt to hold it in place, while the laundry basket and plastic storage container holds the things I need for the class I am taking. Pretty much all of that will go in the storage cabinet except when i need to sew outside the motorhome. The machine is put up in its purple case ready to put in the car along with the rest of my things.

I actually did get quite a bit of quilting done. I cut, sewed, and pressed all but the border of a quilt for my son’s partner. I can’t show it yet, just in case, but I am quite happy with it! I will border it and quilt it at home. It was so nice to just be able to sew for shorter amounts of time without having to take things out then put them away each time.

I probably should note where all we stayed on this trip too. We left on Tuesday and stayed at the same Bowling Green Walmart we are at now. The next night we stayed at the Elks Lodge in Sikeston, MO. My oh my oh my did they have good food! The last Wednesday of the month is smoked ribs, and they were some of the best I have ever eaten. We stayed in at the Red Bay RV Park, a well graveled and graded FHU “campground.” The sites are pretty wide, and the place is well kept. We stayed there from Thursday, 24 September, until Saturday, 5 October, at noon when we headed to Ricky Johnson’s place for a wash and wax. The motorhome looks so pretty! That night we stayed at the Jackson, TN Walmart. We head to a reserved campsite at Wanatee County Park in Marion, IA. The kids and grandkids from Cedar Rapids are coming out for dinner on Thursday after the class, so it will be nice to see them too.

Late posting again

I have no idea why I sometimes just can’t get in the mood to post. It might be because I am also active on Facebook and post some things there. But I can’t use FB as a search tool to show where I’ve been and what I have seen, so here I am back to it again.

We were, as usual, really busy at the FMCA convention. I taught a class on collapsable storage containers that went really well. Everybody got finished, and that’s a major accomplishment by itself. It helped that everyone knew how to use their sewing machines! Here was a sample I made.

We had thought about just gradually and slowly heading back home, but we decided to pretty much just head straight back with only a bit of detours. We spent Thursday, 22 September, in Caldwell, ID at the Elks Lodge. Nice place. Then we stayed at dry camping spot at Stanton Crossing, ID for 3 nights. There was a nice museum there we visited too. Nice change from all the crowds in Oregon. From there we went to northern Utah on the southern part of the Uintah Moutains and a nice boondock site along the Mirror Lake highway. We did some riding and generally kept relaxing. On Friday, 30 August, we were in Laramie at the Walmart. Saturday we stayed at Cabelas in Kearney, NE. Sunday we stayed at an Elks Club in Des Moines. On Monday, Labor Day, we made it home, though it was late enough in the day we just stayed in the motorhome at the local campground (Big Woods Lake) again. It is so easy to just put the motorhome in a spot and unpack gradually!

I really haven’t done much sewing this entire summer. I did finish a couple of quilts that were mostly pieced in the motorhome. The triangle one only needed binding, but the Hunter Star needed quilting and binding. Much easier to quilt on the sitdown Sweet 16!

Now we are off again. We left this morning for Red Bay, AL for our yearly motorhome service, to fix a few nagging issues, and to get a bit of remodeling done We stayed in the Walmart parking lot in Bowling Green, MO, between Hannibal and St. Louis. About 270 miles from home so a nice day’s drive.

North Slope Road, UT and surrounds

North Slope Road is also known as WY 283, China Meadow Road, and USFS 072. We are parked not far off the road behind a row of pines. Since we arrived on Monday we have taken three RZR rides. The first was a short jaunt on Monday to China Meadows just down the road. It is a large beaver-created meadow that is beautiful. There is a small tent campground, but lots more dispersed sites. And we saw a moose! The picture is just awful because we were totally surprised when he stepped out of the willows and crossed the road. This pic is from Kevin’s phone and does not do the animal justice. This was probably the most beautiful bull moose I have ever seen. He was a glistening dark brown and huge. He walked across the road and was gone into the trees and up the hill by the time we got our wits together. You can see a bit of China Meadows too.

On Monday we took a longer trip on the west side of Marsh Lake. It was lovely! We climbed up the mountains well north to Stateline Reservoir, and then followed the trail along the ridge. There were lots of ruined log cabins scattered through the entire route. We asked a USFS employee what they were the remnant of, and he said they were left over from the tie hacking days. Beginning in the 1860s with the Transcontinental Railroad and continuing periodically through the 1930s, tie hackers would harvest wood, cut it the size of railroad ties, and send them downriver to be collected.

We found a collection of ruins designated as an archeological site. I was told it was a central collecting site for the tie hackers, and it included a commissary plus a number of outbuildings. The first ruin show is the large commissary. You need to click on the link, probably twice.

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This one is just an example of the ride. Most of it was on smooth two digit roads.

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This shows Stateline Reservoir.

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Today we drove on the east side of the campground a total of 60+ miles. It was rough! Wyoming has many trails restricted to 50” units which include motorcycles, traditional sit on ATVs, and the smallest of the side by sides like ours. This is what they use to make sure you stay true to the size limit! This was through a bog.

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Then there are these photos too. It was beavers that made the beautiful meadows, and this dam, not even close to being the largest, is a meadow in the making,

Big beaver dam to eventually make the beautiful meadows.

White columbines were everywhere in the riparian areas.

I have never seen so many white columbines!

Of course the GoPro was busy too. This was the first 50” trail we too, today. It was ROUGH! It went mostly straight up through a big blowdown. Very interesting, and challenging to drive on. There was one spot where a dead tree had rolled into the road, and Kevin moved it to the side, securing it with a rock.

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Here is a video of the bog boardwalk trail.

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Luckily not all of the trip was challenging, but we were both tired and a bit sore.

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it is expected to rain tomorrow, so we decided to take the truck to visit Ft. Bridger. Going to see how my back holds up!

Oh, and I did do some sewing. I finished up a sample for a class I hope to teach at the Redmond, OR FMCA convention in August. It is a cute fabric box that folds completely flat! RVers always need compact storage ideas.

Umm. Should have taken a picture of it collapsed!

And to end on an adorable note, the cats love the motorhome! They spend all their time staring out windows at the squirrels, mice, chipmunks, and birds, that they collapse and cuddle more than usual.