Our Anniversary

This is Jim's and my 28th anniversary. As many of our friends know, Jim and I have multiple....well, many multiple marriages (three for him and five for me). So to be able to say we have been married 28 years to the same person is kind of a real accomplishment for both of us and we are very proud of the fact.

Even though it is Friday and we should be planted here at the campground we are going to go out for dinner to JJ's Riverside Restaurant in Pagosa Springs. It does sit right on the river and is a bit upscale, so it will be real nice place to celebrate..

I don't have any photos on this computer of our wedding, but here is one just before we went on the road. We both had more hair then :)

Jim is the light of my life and it has been a wonderful and adventurous 28 years!

Layette for Great-granddaughter

Can you spell cute?

These are too adorable!!! I started knitting a simple layette set for our "yet-to-be-born" great-granddaughter and when I got to the booties I couldn't help but laugh and smile. So I continued on and knitting the whole set.

The sweater came out a bit big and the bonnet a bit smaller, but that's what happens when you hand make something. Maybe I'll knit a bigger bonnet. Then she can have one a birth and one to grow into. The color is a soft, light yellow.

I thought it all came out pretty good.

It's Sunday and so we are having all our camphosts over for potluck. We are making barbeque chicken with a salad and green beans with bacon and onions. Want to come over and join us? You certainly are welcomed to.

Remember - you are loved and thought of often.

Quilt for the Great-granddaughter

Jim had to drive 75 to Comstock and Rock Creek Campgrounds to clean them, so he was gone for 6-7 hours. So I figured I'd have time to make the top to a baby quilt for our "yet to-be-born" great-granddaughter scheduled to make her appearance in November. Last week I had stopped at my local quilt shop, Gray Goose, and bought the necessary fabric. So I set up the kitchen area of our rig into a "quilt room" and got started.

The back counter becomes the ironing board with the island becoming the cutting board.

The sewing machine sits on the dining room table and I hang a piece of flannel in the cabinet doors above the couch to hold the pieces of cut fabric.

I put on NPR on our XM radio and listened to some very interesting news shows while I sewed and in about five hours I had a quilt top finished and ready to be "sandwiched" and quilted.

The actual quilting of a quilt takes up some room, so I'll wait till I can go back to Gray Goose and use one of their large tables to spread out in. One time I put a tablecloth on a picnic table in a campground and used an extension cord to use my sewing machine and I sewed outside - got a heck of a sunburn on my neck also!

Well, Jim has returned and is finishing up cooking beef enchiladas for dinner, so I best go and get ready to eat.

Remember, you are loved!!!!!!

Season Winding Down

Jim in front of tree that fell on it's own last week across a handicap bridge to the lake. It was about 25 feet tall - or long since it was now laying down ha-ha.

Last weekend was our last BIG weekend. This weekend we could feel that the season is winding down. From now on we'll have very few campers during the week with locals coming in on the weekends only. Our revenue goes down by half or more. We still have three weeks or so to go before we leave around Sept 12th although the campgrounds are officially closed Sept 7th.

It is pretty chilly at night and in the mornings. Most mornings (like today) there was "frost on the pumpkins" as Jim enjoys saying. We have a lot of personal wood that we have gathered so last night we started a campfire early and feed it for a few hours. We need to burn up all this wood we've gathered. Jim cooked a great dinner of barbeque ribs. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Our camphosts up here in Big Meadows had to leave Friday morning as their daughter had to have heart surgery and they wanted to be home to be with her. So Jim and I are alone here once again. We hope to move another camphost from another campground up here to help us out for the rest of the season.

So hopefully, with things slowing down, Jim will be able to go fishing more often and I can sit outside and knit without so many interruptions. It's frustrating to be working on a tricky part of knitting instructions and someone comes up and wants to change their reservation site because it isn't as pretty as site so-and-so. UGH!!!!!

We are both getting antsy to get moving again. Sitting in one place for four months is a little too long for us. We consider ourselves fulltime rvers and not snowbirds.....I like to move around ever few weeks or so.

Lesle and Bill are driving over from Pueblo today for a visit - we are so-o-o-o excited to see them. Being around campers are different than being around fellow fulltime rvers. We just see life differently. So it will be nice to talk with them again. Bless their hearts, it's a six hour drive round trip for a visit of a five to six hours. Good friends they are!!! Of course we have a lot to talk about as we are all attending the Chapter 2 Colorado Rally here in South Fork September 15-18, we are going to the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque together, working at Amazon.com together and then traveling to Quartzsite together - or maybe southern Texas. They will join our camphost weekly potluck.....pasta bake today.

Oh, fifth-wheel pulling in - best go. Remember, you are loved!!!

Picnic with Naomi

I had to go into Alamosa for a routine blood test, so I set up having a "picnic" at the nursing home patio with my girlfriend, Naomi. She'll be 94 in January and we've been friends for 26 years, both being members of Beta Sigma Phi. When she broke her hip 14 years ago and I started doing her shopping, taking her to doctor's visits and running errands as her only family is 200 miles away. Naomi taught school for 39 years and is as sharp as a tack. We have great conversations of "the old days" during the Depression and WWII. Very interesting lady!

I bought some fried chicken (a favorite of hers also), macaroni salad, Greek salad and ambrosia for dessert. We giggled and remembered old times having picnics in the woods with church activities.

I finally found a local source for the Mediterranean Spa Olive Oil Body Butter that I like. It is $25 a tub but lasts me two years, so that's not bad. I'm so happy to have a full tub again as I was literally scraping the bottom of the container this morning.

I also went to the local quilt store and picked out fabric for a quilt for our great-granddaughter to be born in November. Yes, our youngest grandson is going to be a daddy at 20 years old. Right name is planned to be "Rayne" which they said means "Strength" - in what culture I'm not sure. We kiddingly asked if the middle name was going to be "Storm" or "Shower"???? We all got a big laugh from that.

Oops, dinner is ready so I have to go. Jim made blueberry pancakes and sausage patties - yum!!!

Remember - you are loved!

Blondie the Biker

Went to the grocery store in our little town the other day and was surprised to see a lady get off her Harley and turn around. This was her passenger.
That's "Blondie" a nine year old long haired Chihuahua. Blondie rides in a specially made black leather pouch made by her owner. Blondie also wears a "do rag" and "doggles" which she doesn't mind as long as she is riding because it keeps the wind from getting her her eyes.

Blondie is all girl - check out the toenails all manicured and painted up - two toned no less.
You never know what you are going to see when you go to town!

Remember - you are loved!

New rug

I went to the Monte Vista Fiber Festival a couple of weeks ago and saw a Mennonite lady weaving a rug on a loom there at the festival. The rugs were so beautiful I inquired what it would cost for a six foot runner for our rig. She quoted me $45 so I ordered one in blues and browns with a little red and white. In one week I picked up my new rug at the South Fork Farmer's Market. Isn't it beautiful? It is all cotton and can be machine washed and dried on a line - no dryer, please. So I'll probably drape it over several chairs under the awning.




Oh, it's 10 pm and we have to shut off the generator and thus the computer, so good night for now and remember, you are very much loved!

S N O W !!!!!!!! UGH!!!!!!!

Yes siree it snowed nearby. Every morning Jim checks the NOAA weather report for our area and this morning it said that at 6 AM it was snowing on Wolf Creek Pass and visibility was only one mile. Wolf Creek Pass is about 9 miles west of us, so we took off to check it out, but the snow had already melted.

There is definitely the feeling of fall - winter in the air. The clouds are changing too and look awful like snow clouds lately. Hope we can get through the camping season before it really starts snowing!

Here's a couple of photos I took by our reservoir.

Remember you are loved!

Chicken Dinner

The other night Jim fixed our own fried chicken dinner - oh, man, you just can't beat homemade fried chicken!!! KFC just can't compare. The taste is so different. We gobbled it up, for sure. Cooking it outside is so much better than on the stove inside; not as messy.
The night before all our Oklahoma City campers left we went out to dinner at Blue Creek Lodge - with great dedication to John Wayne with all the memorabilia possible. The flowers outside were very pretty.


Across the street from the Lodge was a perfect little mountain retreat - isn't it gorgeous?

Things are beginning to wind down for us at the campground. The week ending tomorrow is the busiest of the season - don't understand why, but it is; even bigger than 4th of July. Starting on Saturday things should calm down considerably and Jim can get back to doing some fishing. Today he is painting picnic tables; yesterday he painted restrooms. I'm doing laundry at Rich and Terri's campground enjoying a visit with them.

Last night we went out for pizza with Rich and Terri to OMI (Old Miner's Inn) in Creede. Best pizza ever, called a Momma Mia with all the meats and all the veggies possible so both the guys and gals were satisfied.

Weather is holding in the 80's with rain each afternoon - we're pleased. Remember, you are loved!

Busy weekend

I must be in a cleaning mood today cause I started wiping down windows, wiping out the refrigerator and even shampooed both dogs. Luckily the puppies don't mind being washed....well Poncho did "escape" across the counter top while full of suds - what a mess!

We are having a busy weekend. The big business in July is finished although according to our records this week is suppose to the the biggest of the season! Why? I have no idea, but it shows it will be bigger than 4th of July. We'll see.

Another way we know we are on the down side of the season is that Stubby, Barbara, Charlie and Dawna are leaving tomorrow. That is a sure sign the season is wanning. They have been here since late May and are going back to Oklahoma City - Dawna to drive school bus and the others to care for grandkids after school.

So tonight we are all going out for dinner along with our camphosts, Rudene and Wales, and our good friends, Rich and Terri. We've made reservations at Blue Creek Lodge half way between South Fork and Creede. They have good, old-fashion meals like meatloaf, beef stew, chicken fried steaks along with homemade pies....Yummo-o-o-o can't wait.

But before that we will have our weekly Sunday potluck with all our camphosts. We have a lot of wood still, so we will have a campfire this afternoon as well as tonight after dinner. I made a Jambalaya with sausage and a Gumbo with chicken. . . used mixes I bought while in Louisiana last spring - they came out pretty darn good!!! Gumbo doesn't beat out what we ate at Guy's Gumbo Shack in Fairhope, Alabama, or at Coop's in New Orleans, but it is pretty tasty, nonetheless.

Wow, just saw a big buck walk through our campsite, just behind our outside table!!!! Couldn't get to the camera in time, but here is a photo I took last year in this same campground. Well, Jim just got back from his restroom cleaning so I best sign off for now and get him some breakfast. Remember - you are loved!!!