Summer of 26' is off to a good start

When the heat is to hot stay out of the kitchen!  Do not stay away from poppers with bacon!!  This may have been overkill on the bacon but I did it just for a joke.  One can never a have enough bacon!!

These were my last project before hitting the road for the summer.  Scrappy dolls are the best.  I used up so much crapola in my collections of crap!  I brought a bunch with on the road to give away!  I personally think they are funny cute.

We stuck around Tucson until the 25th as a departure date because......guess what?  There was a disc golf tournament!  Dick did not play but was a spotter.  The course was on top of a ski hill and some of the holes were so unseen that a spotter was necessary. When he does play, I spot for him quite well when I am not picking up rocks, pinecones, sticks or other fabulous nature things to create amazing weird and useless pieces of art!  Anyhow this is the gang of spotters which you will recognize only one.

Tournament ended and we packed the baby truck with all of our stuff to survive 4 months on the road.  Planning on returning October 1st to Tucson so with not having an RV I had to think of all things we may need.  Dick kind of made fun of me starting this packing a month early but you can be sure that I forgot nothing!!  He did an awesome job packing everything in its place. 

This is the specs of the trip when we started.  I will post side by side with the end picture.  I am sure there will be many more miles and stops on the end picture!

Number 2 Grandson graduated basic sometime while we were on the road!!  We are proud of Stephen hope he excels in the Army

This was stop #1.  We slept in our truck at this wayside.  When you are done driving you are just done.  It rained all night.  We streamed a movie and watched it on Dicks phone.  Kind of like a drive in but not!! We woke to very foggy dewy windows.  Don't worry... the truck wasnt rocking!  Couldn't crack the windows because of the rain!!

Quick stop and a walk about at this super funky rusty art display. Lots of politicalness to it!  Me and rusty stuff just belong together.  Quite often you have seen pictures of rusty stuff in these blogs!

Below is where this was if you ever have a  need to stop in Kansas!

Disc golf course art can also be unique!

This course literally had a carpet of these flowers!!

Stopped in Misouri to see Steve again.  Family friend if you don't already know, and since he is in route to family in Wisconsin, he will be forever a stopping point.  I don't think he minds the drop ins!  Fun is always had!

Iowa hospitality!!  We made a ton of friends in Tucson and most are snowbirds.  People you hardly know invite you to stay in their summer homes while traveling.  How awesome is that.  Well we took Dan and Priscila up on this offer and other friends, Kenny and Sally came from an hour away to visit and have dinner as well.  People are awesome!!

Grandson #1 Brennan showing off his nose hairs and his tough army look!!

Made it to Wisconsin just in time to fix a wheel chair in a brewery. Isn't that what everyone does in a brewery.  Drank some good beer too with some family.  Yes, it was our family!

Off to see more family and have a garage party in the hot humid Wisconsin weather.  Man, I love Arizonia.  No humidity=no sweating and salty sweat running into your eyeballs.  I almost died from the stinging!  We still had fun!

Took a trip up to Glenn and Cathys house to swim in the super heated pool.  Always good to not have to tip toe in! Didn't get a picture of Glenn but here is Dicks sister Barb again.

Free music in the park!  Great place to sit, relax, visit with friends and drink a few beers.  The music wasn't my jam but it was entertaining. 

Another free scooter us and running.  Dicks brother taking it for a spin around the block.  We hope he loves it!  My brother Dan aquired this thing years ago and has trucked it just about everywhere for his Grandkids to play on.  Dennis needed it more so he gave it to him.  2 new batteries and it started right up!  Yippy!!

Goodbye Wisconsin, hello Kentucky!  Our friend Mat let us stay in his tiny home that we helped him turn into an Airbnb.  He did all the building, and I made a few things for the interior and helped him understand the website to list it.  If you are ever in Frankfort, you should stay at this really cool place. 

A bit down the road is Elkhorn Creek and he pulled his van down by the river and camped for the night.  Nice little fire and chit chat at the camp!

We went to one of our favorite breweries.  West 6th Farm!  Farm to beer joint with a disc golf course on property.  Great outdoor space to meet up with some friends from the past and have a good time.

Went to Buffalo Trace to see what the store had to offer.  Didn't buy any more bourbon.  We have too much in the truck already.  Did however take a picture of a new display that was not there last time we were there.

Met up with an old friend of mine at a pizza joint.  Had a great time with her and her husband.  She owned the bourbon/wine bar I worked at in Frankfort, KY while we lived there.  Such good people.  

Tiny Home

On to Raleigh, NC to meet up with this cutie!  Adventures daily.  I might need a vacation from this vacation.   She is none stop.  So many crafts & activities & playing this child wants to do.  Perhaps I should have bought some more bourbon.  Just kidding.  Enjoying every minute of this time.  We went to a childrend museum that had tons of fun inside and outside.

Ana in her super girl rainbow cape I made her.

World cup ⚽ watching in a brewery.  What delicious beer and funky art!  Love the different vibes that the breweries have.  So much artistic creativity.  Yes, beer is very artistic!

Off to the North Carolina coast for a few days of beach time.  The weather was awesome and we had a great time.  Rented an Airbnb with a pool.  Kinda crazy but not really. You can only take so much salt in your eyeballs from the ocean water and there was probably a shark in the water just waiting to kill me or at the very least.....bite off my leg!!

We are in Raleigh for a few more day then its on to Bessemer/Beaver, PA to visit with more family.

Can't wait to see the rest of the girls and more grandkids!  Dick is bothering me to take a hike so I gotta a go.  Until next time......

Should say 60's

Road Trippin without a camper!

Its the end of another Arizonia summer! OOPS Winter!

When more than one fan tells you to write, I write. I would like to say I have been too busy and maybe I have but the real reason is because I could not figure out how to sync my photos from my phone to my Google account.  My last blog had all the crazy pictures that this program would not let me edit and it drove me insane.  So crazy that I have not attempted until today when my good friend Ann was jonesing for word from the not so wise and beautiful pictures, so this blog goes back a bit. Enjoy!!

This will show you just how long its been since writing!  Yikes!!  We went to the fabulous Voyager RV Resort Irish band concert and they were great.  The activity people here do an awesome job keeping us all entertained.

We had a surprise visit from Dick O'Gogin at our private party.  This guy can really jam on a blow up guitar 🎸 

Another grandson serving in the Army!!  We cannot wait to see what great things this young man can accomplish!  Our oldest is serving in Hawaii and Stephen here will be in New York for a little bit.  Looking pretty handsome at his basic graduation if I do say so myself!

Family, family, family!!  All are welcome to visit but I gotta say I love family!!  All Dicks brothers (all 2 of them) and his sister visited. A good time was had by all.  We didn't do to much touring around but did get up to Mt. Lemmon for some beauty and silliness.

When you get old you obviously need a boost up!!  I was not going to almost die doing this!!  The truth is Dicks sister is not strong enough to push my fat ass up this rock!😂

If you cannot ground yourself with a dead tree, you just don't belong in this family!!

Being all together does not happen to often and we had a request to have a good picture taken of us all.  We did a pretty good job.

Climb every mountain Ann!!  If you fall I will catch you!! 

Another attempt at a good picture of a bunch of semi old people!

Hanging out at the Circus party in the ball room with a couple clowns!

We took a short trip over to Yuma to howl at the moon. This was the smallest crowd we ever encountered at this gathering.  It was the end of the snowbird season so that was a big factor.  People just love to gather, dance, drink, listen to the band and wait for the moon to crest the mountain.  Then howl and go home.

Dick and I went to a play and sat in the front row.  I thought many a time that one of those actors was going to fall in our laps!

A friend of ours bought a place here and this fabulous bike came with the joint.  It was not so fabulous to begin with but with the fix it expertise of this guy......the tires are all lined up and inflated and the peddle assist motor is up and running.  Who want to look super sexy riding around on this baby!!??  Come on down for a visit next winter and check it out.  We got a new pull-out couch for you super comfortable sleeping!!

Dick doing one of the Luke 5 walks!  Check out this awesome piece of equipment to carry around the disabled hikers.  Such a great program!!

Got some new pills to take for all my problems!!

Well as you may know by now, we sold our camper and our truck!  I will miss all the beer stickers we have collected over the years.  This art stayed with the camper.  I could have used a blow dryer to get them all off but that would have required effort and I feel that there is less effort in getting new stickers at new breweries!

Scored tickets to Charlie.  Took a ride downtown without tickets and thought we could find a few from some scalpers.  No scalping required.  Dick got them for FREE!  I am sure you will hear the story from him some day!!  I cannot tell it like he does! Great show and lots of laughs.

The Gang has all taken off from Voyager and are heading back to their summer homes.  They are sending pictures of their adventures and letting us know when they have arrived safely.

Joyce is a lovely lady who will be taking care of our house while we are away on our adventures & she brought us a bunch of yummy things a couple weeks ago.  The yellow things in the middle are like tiny honey dew melons.  I made some delicious green salsa from the green things and who doesn't like a good tomato sandwich!  Love the free produce here.  Of course, you can donate $$ so it keeps showing up but not necessary.  The veggie ladies do a great job here picking up pound and pounds of produce and setting it out for the taking!

So we are narrowing down our stops along our summer journey!  Not really.  I keep adding more! Add...subtract...add....subtract!!  That's a lot of mathing!!  We are taking off on the 25th of May and not returning until around October 1st ish.  We plan on staying with family and friends most of the way but we are prepared for a lot of sleeping in the car!  We left our tent somewhere and hope to find it at some family members house along the way.  If not...the seats are pretty comfortable in our baby truck and when our backs get out of wack, there is always a cheesy hotel along the way to crash.

We will miss these southwest sunsets but look forward to all the beautiful sunrises and sunsets in other parts of the country!!  Hopefully the next blog will be filled with I almost died adventures and lovely pictures.