December at Highline Lake State Park

Happy Halloween

Winter Camp Hosts

 Congratulations to us! Laton & I have secured a winter host position at Highline Lake State Park in Loma, CO. I will continue working at Star Tek through the winter as it is only a 25 mile commute. We certainly drove more than that with our jobs in Oregon and Arizona before we retired!

We are going to have some fun fishing and as you can see from the pictures we are really camping!

Hole in the Rock, near Moab, UT

Check out the white jeep at the top of the cliff!

Happy Birthday Mara

Valentino, Lee, Lumara & Vance

 We celebrated Lumara's birthday with gator tacos (compliments of our friends in Florida) and Lasagna (Lumara's Birthday dinner request) Everything was delicious and fun!

Valentino & Grammy

Natalie & Vance

Family

Natalie, Sarah and Lee

We had a fun evening chowing down on hot dogs, mac & cheese and s'mores with Lee and his family.

Valentino

Valentino is our youngest grandson and he loved playing in the dog water dish. He is a cutie.

Mogollon Rin

We drove all day yesterday, now we are camped on the Rim! Now the beautiful sunny view is grey and rainy. There was thunder, lightening, wind and now it is hailing. We have called the kids and told them to not bother coming up. We are planning on heading into Phoenix where is is not raining and hailing.

Highline Lake, Colorado

We are on our way to do some camping on the Mogollon Rim In Arizona and spend some time with our kids and grandkids. On our way, we spent tonight at the Highline Lake State Park. It is a very nice park. We didn't get very far on the road but since it was pretty late in the afternoon when we got started, it made a nice first stop on our trip.

Island Acres

We have decided to spend some time camping in the State Parks before we decide where to settle for the winter. Since we can't travel right now because I am working, we thought it would be fun to pretend a little.

We are here at Island Acres for a couple of weeks before we head to AZ to see our kids, grand babies and friends in Phoenix, AZ. Here is an aerial view of the Debuque Canyon

Zombie Hunting!

 We spent a fun day at the Bookcliffs Zombie Hunting. We did pretty good. Pretty sure those zombies are out of our way now. We spent a very nice afternoon with our co-workers from the RV Park, Ty & Debbie. She has a pink camo gun case - gotta get me one of those. It is all about the accesories.

 Dead Zombies (kind of an oxymoron)!

Ty & Laton played a game of Battleship with their .22's. Ty won!

Friends

Laton and Madalyn

 We had a lovely campfire with Adult S'mores tonight. We shared it with our co-workers,  John & Madalyn and Ed & Marie.







 

Ed and Marie

The season is almost over and we will all be going in different directions at the end of the month! Texas and California for the others, staying in Colorado for the winter for us.

Another Sunday Drive

 This is Vega State Park. It was a fun drive. The water level was low but still made a pretty scene. There is a lodge up there that the other camp hosts recommended: Vega Lodge .





The drive included a stop at the Meadery of the Rockies. It took several samples to finally settle on the honey peach wine. Yum!

To all my sisters, birth and of the heart!

Jazz Festival on the Green

One of the owners of Junction West RV Park plays the trumpet (Tom Garland-blue shirt and ball cap) in a Jazz Orchestra. They had a concert on the grassy area of the RV Park. It was a wonderful evening! Everyone pot lucked, ate themselves silly, and then for desert, a full jazz orchestra!

AWWWW!

Lee, Natalie & Valentino (newest grand-son)

HOT! HOT! HOT!

We are limping along without air conditioning. There were some electrical problems at the RV Park and our AC was fried.  We are waiting to see if the owners will help replace it so it is only 102 Degrees inside our RV! UGH!!!! We do have a smaller floor model to help take the edge off but...it is still HOT!

A Sissy Fix

My sister Carolyn and brother-in-law David stopped by on their vacation trip. We had a lot of fun going out for Mexican Food Monday night and also having Bacon Maple Bars for breakfast this morning. YUM!

Carolyn and I are very close and we love our "sissy fixes". Sometime we just call each other to hear each other's voices. We have a game we play, where we plan to meet for lunch (in our heads and hearts), even though we are 1000's of miles apart.

Pagosa Springs

We took a nice drive to Pagosa Springs, CO down near the New Mexico Border. Here is a picture of Chimney Rock. We saw a lot of wildlife on our drive. We traveled Hwy 550 (Red Mountain Highway).

You can barely see a couple of deer between the trees in the middle.

Pretty Flowers

These pretty roses are on my walk from the parking lot to the office!

I am in growing mode but I don't have a green thumb. I made a deal with my nice neighbor, Kathy. I bought us both flowers for her pots and she waters them for us. I even get to enjoy one of the pots at my RV spot.

Sunday Drive

We saw the Colorado National Monument in the winter, now we took a drive for the summer. It is the same but still different. We think we like the snow on the monument better. More contrast with the red rock and the green shrubs. Click HERE to see my entry for that on the blog. This is a view of Independence Monument from the Saddlehorn picnic area and campgrounds.

Funny

We have both been busy working and our blog has been one of the casualties of less time! We will try to be better about posting. I thought I would share a funny sign our friend Jen bought us. I thought it was very sweet and it still describes our relationship after 40 years!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Roy, Wes, Carolyn and Ray Rook

Today is Laton's and my father's birthday. Laton is a twin. He was so excited to not have to share is birthday with his twin sister anymore after we got married...no, he shares it with his father-in-law.

But it is all good. Happy Birthday to the men in my life. They are the bestest ever!

Another Road Trip...

 south to Durango, CO through the quaint mining town of Ouray. This drive took us through Red Mountain Pass, then we circled back up north through Lizard Head Pass. We took a little jaunt to Telluride, CO where there was a MountainFilm Festival occurring.

We continued north, cut over to Ridgeway, then back to Grand Junction through Montrose and Delta. We saw wonderful mountain vistas, snow capped peaks and blue lakes and crystal clear streams.

Solar Eclipse of the Moon

By Scott Binder on 5-20-12

I wanted to post a picture my cousin, Scott Binder, took of the eclipse on Sunday. He used binoculars to cast the eclipse on copier paper.

My sister, Carolyn, was going horseback riding to see the eclipse, but no pics from her yet.

Click here for more pictures and info from the WEB!

A Rainbow!

A strong windstorm just swept through - and left us a rainbow!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

Lisa, my neighbor and I are the same age! Her birthday is four days before mine. We decided to celebrate early together and had a BBQ. Laton cooked for us and we had cake and ice cream with our co-workers here at the RV Park. It was YUMMY!

John, Lisa, Madalyn, Carrie

It is only Spring!

Hot! Hot! Hot!

My Own Cubicle!

When I left Qwest, I was excited about our new life traveling as workampers. It has been a lot of fun but the economy has not been fun. Rising health insurance premiums, rising fuel costs and just plain rising cost of living has taken a toll on our income. We decided to take some time off from traveling and have landed in Grand Junction, CO. I started working for a company called Star Tek. We plan on staying here for awhile and fatten up the travel fund. Laton picked up my extra hours here at Junction West RV Park.

I am enjoying being back in the work force, I actually put large business phone orders together to send to an order typist for another phone company. I was an order typist in my prior work life.  I graduated from training today and now have MY OWN CUBICLE! I never thought I would miss my cubicle. LOL Here is my graduation picture Laton took for me.

Happy May Day

Have a Happy May Day. 

MAI BOWLE 

wine spiced with sweet wood ruff

In Germany sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) is known as the Waldmeister—“master of the forest.”

1/2 cup sweet wood ruff leaves
2 bottles white Rhine wine
1 32-ounce bottle soda water
1/2 cup hulled and sliced strawberries

1 to 2 hours before serving, place wood ruff in a punch bowl. Pour wine over and allow to stand. Just before serving, add soda water and strawberries.

This is a throwback to the ancient Druid practice of using the spring herb to mark winter’s end

Sunday Drive

We took a lovely Sunday drive today. We drove east on I-70, turned off at Glenwood Springs on to Hwy. 82, then on to Carbondale. We turned off on to Hwy. 133 past Snowmass Mt. and over McClure Pass, through a little town called Paonia and on to Delta. Then we turned on to Hwy. 50 and headed back to Grand Junction, CO. The view was wonderful.

Campfire With Friends

Bob

We had a wonderful evening visiting with our former co-workers, Edie & Bob. They moved back to their  home up in Alpine, WY for the summer and popped down for a visit today. We had a great dinner at Fiesta Guadalajara with them. Then we had a nice campfire and lots of laughs.

Lisa, our neighbor

Edie