On the road AGAIN

We thought we were going to be real smart this time. We were going to get everything packed and put away the night before we left WA on the 5th. So we proceeded to pack up all the stuff we had strewn around, cinch down the motorcycle in the trailer, turn the motorhome around and hook the trailer up so that we could leave real early the next morning. Everything went great until we tried to put in the door shade. You would think that by now we would know that SOMETHING would go wrong to mess up our plans. Well this almost was it. After looking at the directions of the shade they wanted us to take off a cover that we couldn't get to because of an outside light. Next best thing? Manually, by brute force, push the shade frame back to the side of the coach and wrap, bungy, and tape it up. Then stuffing the canvas behind the frame as best we could knowing that we were probably going to hit wind at some point. Finally at 7:30pm we got everything back together and still had to go into town to say goodbye to Karl's aunt. We got back to the coach around 10pm, fell into bed and waited for the morning to come (way too soon).


On the 5th we were on the road at 8:30am heading to Boise, ID. After driving for 11 hours we decided we were not going to make Boise to meet a friend and ended up in a Wal-Mart parking lot (God bless Wal-Mart). Wasn't too bad except for a local resident thought that it would be real funny to go around the parking lot at 3:30am blowing the horn and the animal control truck (with at least 2 dogs inside, barking) sitting at the gas station for about 30 minutes at 7am. Needless to say didn't get much sleep that night.


Took off around 9am and drove to Ogden, UT to meet up with an Ogden City Policeman who wants to start a new Blue Knight chapter in Ogden and wanted to talk to Karl. After we got through with him it was 4pm and we decided to drive up to the Park City RV Resort to spend the night there and meet our friends Robin and Bill who live in Park City. Would have loved to spend a little time with them and visit the town, but we had to move on.

After driving to Farmington and spending the night in the Elks Club parking lot (yes, they do have hook-ups for RV's) we finally arrived back at our house in Rio Rancho on the 8th where we will be for two months. Well, I will because Karl leaves on Saturday to drive the motorcycle and trailer back to California and fix the pool there that is leaking. He will then fly back to NM on Friday and we will begin to get ready for our company that is coming in for the balloon fiesta in Oct.

Orcas Island, Washington

Oh joy!!! The joys of eating FRESH crab straight out of the ocean, thrown in the pot and devoured all within 3 hours! We went to a friend's house over on Orcas Island, which is part of the San Juan Islands, and helped bring up the crab pots. Well, Karl and Larry did. Vickie and I watched from the comfort of the porch. Going over there is a unique trip for sure. We had to leave Ferndale at 8:30am and drive to Anacortes to catch the ferry at 10am. It's a 90 minute trip with stops at two other islands and we arrived around 11:30am. Meeting our friends at a restaurant we enjoyed a great lunch then off to their cabin to enjoy a warm and relaxing day. Karl and Larry changed clothes and off they went to boat out to the traps. They only pulled up two traps, but they did end up catching 18 nice crabs. There is nothing like fresh crab meat! We had a great dinner then changing clothes back on the bike at 6:15pm to drive the 30 minutes to catch the 7:00pm ferry back to Anacortes. We get there around 6:50 only to be informed that the ferry is running about 45 minutes late! It wasn't too bad waiting because one of the islands finest stopped and since he noticed that we were part of the Blue Knights talked with us for most of the time. Finally the ferry arrived one hour late and we were boarded, on our way to Anacortes. Unfortunately since it was late we didn't get back to the farm until 10pm. That made for a long day, but it was worth it when we were able to bring back 14 crabs for freezing. We will be eating crab well into the winter. Woo-hoo!!!

We are starting to wrap up the work at the farm and getting ready to leave for New Mexico on the 5th. It will take us about 2.5 days to drive and then we will be planted for the next two months. In November we will be moving the motorhome down to Phoenix so that we can be at Karl's son-in-law's graduation from the University of Phoenix and I can attend Christie's baby shower. After than we will leave the motorhome there and drive my car to California for the last two months of the year.

Karl's Aunt Myrne has decided to finally sell the farm (Thank you Lord) so we are slowly clearing out the house with things that she wants family members to have. To some people that sounds really odd, but if you think about it it is a great way for his aunt to give things to whom she wants while she's alive and no one can argue what belongs to them when she's gone. A great way to stop any fights that could erupt upon a person's death. The farm will probably go up for sale in November when Karl comes back for a few days. Hopefully it will sell quick, but not too quick, because there is still a whole lot of junk that has to be taken care of.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Our next adventure took us to Calgary in Canada. We met our motorcycle group from Sacramento in Yakima, WA and started on the road to the Blue Knights West Coast Conference that was being held in Canada. Since we were already in WA we decided to ride the 4.5 hours to Yakima on the 11th and spend the night at Karl's former Lt. from Topponish, WA (where Karl was Chief of Police) and who is now the deputy chief of Yakima. On the 12th we met up with our group at lunch and started on our trip.

Mike Martin is a fantastic ride leader/coordinator and he put together a great ride up to Calgary. Never in a straight line from point A to point B because we love to meander. He always finds great places to ride to, through, by, near, etc. This time we were able to ride through Jasper National Park and Banff National Park both of which are in Alberta, Canada.

As we entered Jasper Park we were greeted by Mt. Robson. What a great backdrop for a picture of our motorcycles on the road. We tried to find wildlife whenever we were in a park, but didn't have a great deal of luck. EXCEPT when we were driving along and spotted a young male elk grazing along the roadside in Jasper. We stopped the bikes and were able to snap pictures of him. Then he decided that the grass was better on the other side and slowly walked right behind our bike! At first I thought he was going to come a lot closer to us, but he changed directions at the last minute.

When we arrived in the town of Jasper for lunch we discovered that they were having a rodeo that weekend and the RCMP were escorting the rodeo queen through town on horseback. I love a man in uniform!!! The town was very crowded, but it was fun looking at the shops and having a great lunch at a Greek/American restaurant.

Our next adventure was going through Banff National Park. What an awesome place. If you ever get up there you will see scenes that will blow your mind! It seems that every bend in the road provided us with another fantastic photo opportunity. Glacier capped mountains, gorgeous mountain streams, turquoise waters, waterfalls at the edge of the road, etc. Unfortunately no wildlife was spotted by our group. We stayed in the town of Banff and had a great soup and salad dinner at the edge of town.

We arrived in Calgary on the 16th for the beginning of our conference and stayed right downtown. Not a real great place for a motorcycle conference, but we worked it out. It was a great time to see those that we haven't seen in a year and meet new members. Calgary will be another place we go back to see things that we didn't have time for this trip. During the conference the host chapter always puts on trips around the area for us to ride to. This time we rode about 90 miles to the town of Drumheller where they have a great dinosaur museum. The town really plays this up because they have found a lot of fossils in the area and have them on display. The museum was a great place and we got to see some pretty complete fossils. If you take a good look at this picture you can see why I couldn't pass up snapping it!!!! Mmmmm--tastes like chicken!

We are now back at the farm until the 5th of September when we will leave for New Mexico and stay rooted until the first part of November.

Louisville, Kentucky - Part 3

Ok gentlemen, here it is! Our last day to tour we were up early and took a 120 mile trip to Bowling Green to view the National Corvette Museum. What a treat. You may want to take a look at the pictures in the photo album because I will be referring to them alot since those are the only notes I took! I was having too much fun looking and snapping pictures to write any thing down. The factory is right across the street, but we didn't take a tour there.

Anyway, when you first walk into the museum you are greeted by the "Nursery" as seen in pictures 3, 4 and 22. The Nursery is where your car is delivered from the factory to await your arrival. When you order your car you can ask for the R8C option. That entitles you to have your car waiting for you at the nursery along with a VIP tour of the factory, museum and hands on delivery from the staff. There were six "babies" waiting and while we were looking at them all a new delivery was pulled in and parked.

When we went into the museum itself there was a picture of the first Corvette symbol on display, picture 12 (sorry that it's so blurry). But you will notice the difference between that one and the others that I have pictured. The reason for the difference is when Chevy was going to put on the symbol with the US flag (just hours from releasing the first model) they found out that you couldn't display the flag on a commercial product. So they frantically changed the symbol to show the Fleur-de-Lis and quickly put that on. You can see how the symbol has changed over the years.

They had the first car produced (1953) in the museum. At that time, if you ordered the car you could have any color you wanted (as long as it was white) and the interior was also your choice (as long as it was red). It really showed a person's individuality.

We walked through the building and came to the rotunda part that had a model for almost every year made. There was one very interesting car (pictures 17-19) with quite a unique story. During 1983 the factory was planning to move so they only made 43 cars with the year of 1983. the rest were considered 1984's even though they were still made in 1983. Of the original 43 1983's this one is the only one left! So it was a unique thing to see. There was also a special painted car in honor of the POW-MIA's of 4th Allied POW Wing.

Over all it was a great tour and well worth the trip down the road. I wish we had more time to spend in Louiville because we would have loved to have visited the American Printing House for The Blind, General Patton's Musuem, Lexington and so many other places. I guess we will have to go back.

Right now, as I write this we are on the motorcycle traveling up to Calgary, Canada for a Blue Knight West Coast Conference. It seems like, right now, our lives and travels are circled around Blue Knight conferences and conventions. At least it does give us the opportunity to see places that we probably would have passed by (like Louisville). Until next blog have a great day and stay posted!

Louisville, Kentucky - Part 2

First of all, to Tom, Judy and Geri, thank you for your kind comments. It's great to know that I have put a smile on your face.


The next morning we woke up to a very, very soggy day. It started raining the night before and continued through the rest of the day. There's nothing sadder than seeing motors sitting out in the rain and no one using them (boo-hoo, sob, sob). Okay, enough of that. We had four wheels and we didn't care what the weather was. So off we go to our next sight-seeing destination - the Louisville Slugger Museum and the Frazier International History Museum. I was really excited to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum because it also included a tour of the factory and I could see how this famous bat was made. Unfortunately picture taking was not allowed in the factory so I will try to remember everything that we saw.


First some interesting facts about the bats made. The trees that are used for bat making need to be older than 80 years old. During just one baseball season there are over 40,000 trees that will be used. In fact, there is a forest that the factory owns that they grow their own trees. Now each tree will yield about 60 bats - that's including bats for professional players and everyone else. When they used to make bats by hand it would take about 20 minutes to carve one using a hand plane and a caliper - measuring the new bat to the old one to get it just right. Now with machinery and a standard template it takes about 30 seconds. Annually, the factory will make about 1.8 million bats. During our tour we saw bats being make for Alex Rodriguez. They told us that each professional player has such specific details on their bats that they can tell just by swinging it if it's make right or not. As we entered the factory you realize just how small the factory is! It's about the size of an average warehouse. Once the bats are carved then they go to the sealing department where they are dipped, by hand, in a special lacquer sealing and hung to dry. After they are dried they get painted (if someone wants a special color, there are nine in all) or they can stay natural colored. The last step is deciding what type of label to put on the bat. You have a choice of burning, embossed or sticker. My son is getting his own personalized bat made for him. Enjoy, Brian.


In the museum you can see bats from Babe Ruth (see picture), Hank Aaron and some older guys (sorry, I couldn't remember their names). Also in the museum they have a display that has you standing behind the catcher as if you are the umpire (but behind a Plexiglas shield) and a pitching machine pitches a ball at you with the speed of a pro player. I don't see how the umps do it! Even though I was behind a shield I dodged every time it was thrown at me. Those things could hurt you real bad!!!!!


Our next stop was a few doors down the street and that was the Frazier International History Museum. Sounds great huh? Well, according to the description in the visitor's guide it says, "A world-class museum that takes visitors on an unforgettable journey through 1,000 years of history; with interactive displays, multi-media presentations & costumed interpreters." Boy, that sounds great! Now, Karl said he doesn't read my blogs because he trusts me in giving you the information of what we saw (sure that is a good idea, Karl?). Well, this museum was great for the men, "Wow, look at that! What a neat thing!), but really boring for the women, "Okay, I've seen a couple dozen of the same things, can we leave now?" The museum is a collection of weapons from the medieval days to the present. I mean you can only see guns, knives and swords for so long then they all look the same. Sorry, guys, but for me I could have been in and out in less than a hour. BUT Karl was really getting into this stuff so we ended up staying about 3 hours (ho-hum). I do have to say they do have a rather unique agreement with the Royal Armory of Britain in that they exchange between each other. So we saw a lot of British stuff and I imagine that they have a lot of American stuff over in London. The one thing that was great (for me anyway) was that the museum had the armour of King Henry VIII (when he was young and lean). And it was very interesting to see how they made chain-mail armour - tedious work.


Don't' forget to take a look the the photos on the link to the left of the page.


Next time I think the guys will really enjoy my blog. We went to the National Corvette Museum.

Louisville, Kentucky

Before I go and update you on our trip to Louisville, Karl wanted to make sure that everyone saw that he and Cody finally finished the milk house painting. Well, Karl supervised and Cody sprayed and sprayed and sprayed! Not only do we have a white milk house, but we also have white grass, white weeds and white trees. We did have good time with Cody and it was a good time surprising him when his dad showed up for the weekend.

Now for Louisville (or as it is pronounced Lou-a-vul). We went to attend the Blue Knights Intenational convention where Karl is the West Coast chairman. For those who have no idea who the Blue Knights are, we are a Law Enforcement motorcycle club with world wide members. Every year there is an international convention held somewhere in the US that we usually ride our motorcycle to. This year we didn't have the time so we ended up flying. We arrived on July 19 at midnight after a 3 hour delay in St. Louis. When we arrived at our hotel we were informed that we didn't have a room reserved. Fortunately they weren't booked up and we got our room and crawled into bed around 1am. Karl had to be up to attend meetings starting at 9am for the whole day. Since most of the guys were in meetings that day the hosting chapter gave the women a pamper day including manis, pedis, massages, facials and make-overs. It was rather restful (for me at least!) Finally at 5:30 Karl is done with his meeetings. We end up going to dinner, a little social time and fall into bed around 10pm. The next morning we didn't wake up until 930am! I guess we were tired. Since Karl didn't have any more meetings we decided to do some sightseeing. But first we had to straighten out our room problem. Come to find out the hotel cancelled us since our reservations were made by International and they thought we were arriving on Sat instead of Sun. It was soon corrected.


Our first day we went to Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. It was a very intersting 4 hours! Did you know that the Kentucky Derby has been running continuously at Churchill Downs for the last 135 years? There are only 6 horses actually buried on the grounds - the newest one is Barbaro where he is buried under his statue at the entrance of the park. When they are buried the only parts saved for burial are the head, heart and hooves. In 2009 there was $30 million spent on bets and it is a CASH ONLY wagering system. Can you imagine setting down $10,000 in cash for a wager? Think you would like to go to the Kentucky Derby one day? For hotel reservations think two years in advance. For seating think $40 for infield standing (bring your own chair). Want to spend a little more? Bleachers are $100 per seat. Want more? A box, which holds six seats are in a very nice location, but each seat costs $150 and you MUST buy all six seats. Want millionaire's row? Fuggetaboutit. If you have to ask you can't afford it. Last year over 120,ooo attended the races (13 in all, of which #12 is the Derby). When you take the tour of the facilities you see the 135 winners all posted around the paddocks and you see most are in white, but some are in gold - those are the Triple Crown winners. Another intersting fact - of the 135 winners of the KD, 122 were born in Kentucky (they think it's in the water). Even 2009 winner, Mine That Bird, who hails from New Mexico (Yay!) was born in Lexington, Kentucky. Now, the day before the derby they have another derby called The Kentucky Oaks that draws about 100,000 people. Then after that derby is run the grounds crew has only 11 hours to redo EVERYTHING before the KD. That means new landscaping, new flowers (from tulips to roses), seating cleaned, restocking concessions stands, grooming the track, etc.

For more photos click on link under PHOTOS.

Our next stop was the Louisville Slugger Museum. Later!

Louisville, Kentucky

We all know that bad things come in threes. I have finally hit the third in our series. First the motorhome steps, then the freeway cat, now my computer. I received a Trojan virus from somewhere and couldn't get rid of it. Thought I had a good virus protection, but found out that my Norton is rated #13 out of 20. So I take it into Best Buy to have the Geeks clean out the virus and clean up the machine. Two days later I get a call and their diagnosis is not only do I have a virus, but I also have a bad hard drive. I do have an extended warranty service with Dell, but we all know what fun it is to call their customer service in India. Well, I did call and they are sending out a new drive, but until it gets fixed I have to share Karl's computer.

We flew to Louisville, Kentucky on Sunday, July 19, after dropping off Karl's grandson Cody and his dad John. Gong back to Sacramento, John was leaving at 10am (no problem), Cody was leaving at 11:30am (big problem) and we were off to Louisville (really big problem). John was the only one that didn't have any problems with flights. Cody never left Seattle until 12:30pm and we left on time but got stuck in St. Louis for a 4 hour delay. We arrived in town at midnight instead of 9pm. So began our Blue Knight International Convention of 2009. Monday Karl was lodged in meetings all day while I got to play a little. Since most of the men were going to be in meetings all day the host chapter set up a pampering day for the ladies which included mani's, pedi's, facials, massages and make-overs. Because we don't have our bike here we will probably do our own sightseeing for the rest of the week. I will update our blog with tour details and pictures later. For the CA-1 Blue Knights, I'm sure Karl will update y'all (I'm in Kentucky, remember?) after his meetings.

Okay, here is the ongoing saga of the freeway cat. Some of you already know about our motorhome steps not working before we left on our trip. Well, when we got to Ferndale we called a few Camping Worlds (which had no motors for our steps) and a few RV sales and service stores and they were any where from 2-4 days out. So Karl tried his standard RV parts stores in Bellingham. At first they were only going to diagnosis the problem and see what parts were needed to fix the steps and the fog light. Surprise!!!!! They were able to find a motor in another package and asked if we wanted to hang around for a few hours and they could fix everything. So did we want to wait a few hours or come back later in the week and get it fixed then? Well, duh! So off they went to find out what had to be fixed. After about 30 minutes the tech came back and wanted to verify what we really hit to knock out the fog light because not only did the cat tear the light completely off the frame but it also kicked back up and actually broke off the entire frame made of hard plastic that the fog light was attached to! Now they had to fix that with fiberglass. So our little kitty cost us about $500!!!!!!! But, hey, our steps are fixed!



We finally have Cody (Karl's grandson who is with us for a few weeks) getting ready to paint the milk house. It's not very big, but it will give him something to do. Unfortunately the weather hasn't been very helpful in painting. On Saturday the temperature was in the low 80's. For the last two days it dropped to the low 60's. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest. Today they are both off playing golf. Or I should say Karl is golfing, Cody is driving the golf cart (heaven help everyone!). And I am REALLY enjoying a QUIET time in the motorhome without a chattering 13-year-old. He's like the Energizer Bunny - keeps on going and going and going. He should calm down by Thursday since we are surprising him and not telling him his dad is coming up for the weekend.

Monday, July 6, 2009

I hope everyone had a great holiday. I wish I had a picture, (I didn't think of it until after we were on the road), but you would have gotten a great laugh at seeing how we put a 38' motorhome in between two lake cottages and a bunch of trees. It was the highlight of the day for most of the neighbors who watched Karl manuver the beast in it's spot. We spent the holiday weekend up at Donner Lake with some friends, eating and drinking like it was a holiday! On the night of the 4th we went down to the lakefront and watched a fantastic fireworks show! They were so close it was like being in the middle of them. In fact, a few cinders actually fell down very close to us. But that's what made it so special I guess.

Now we have started out on our summer travel up to Ferndale, Washinton for two months. Karl's grandson has joined us for a few weeks and we will be spending the time up there working on Karl's family farm and taking his 96-year-old aunt out on day car trips. She was moved to an assisted living facility last September (which she now loves), but still has the farm. Eventually it will be sold, but right now the time isn't great for selling. Until then, we go up and keep the creek mowed and the house somewhat cleaned up. We are still moving out some of Aunt Myrne's clothes that will be donated to the Goodwill since she doesn't want them and relocating the upstairs furniture to the downstairs. Plus Karl has his school reunion in July and a planned motorcycle trip with the grandson up to Canada for the day.

But no motorhome trip is done without some kind of kinks in the system. Ours started out with our steps not working at all. It seems the motor may have decided to commit suicide. We were planning on stopping at our dealer in McMinnville, Oregon where we bought it to see if they would take "walk-ins" and fix it. As we were leaving Citrus Heights and not more than 10 miles from home on I-80, a van in front of us hit a cat on the freeway, but didn't kill it. So it was flopping around in front of us, but Karl did a good job of driving over it and not hitting it. Unfortuately the cat had other plans and as it was trying to stand up it got caught in our fog light wiring and pulled a fog light completely out of the frame. Of course we didn't know this until after driving for a few minutes we heard a bumping noise coming from the coach. I first thought was that part of the cat was caught under the coach and I was not about to go check it out! Karl comes back in holding the fog light in his hands (but no cat, thank God). So now I really had to call our dealer to see if they could fix our steps AND replace the fog light. (What did we do before cell phones?) So I call the dealer only to find out that they closed up in November of last year! Then after calling the Fleetwood custome service number and getting a dealer close to where we were heading we call them only to find out that they are about two days out in service. So Camping World here we come. We should be in Washington by tomottow night barring any other problems.