Trip home from Spring Training

March 27 - April 20th (Days 546-571)


These blog entries are being written a few months (!) after the trip, for a variety of reasons. So, comments will be short and hopefully accurate!

The day after Judy and Candy arrived, we all went to the Museum of Musical Instruments. We highly recommend this place and look forward to returning to it again. We only spent a few hours here, and could have spent days.
From their website:

Embark on a fascinating journey through sound at the world's largest musical instrument showcase. Hear, see, and feel the spirit of music around the globe as you explore engaging exhibits for music lovers of all ages at Phoenix's Musical Instrument Museum.

Discover a wide range of interactive galleries, home to 6,500 instruments from 200 different countries. Experience the music of the world as you travel through exhibits dedicated to Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania, Europe, Latin America, and North America in the Geographic Galleries. In the Mechanical Music Gallery, fill your ears with the majestic notes of the Orchestrion, a 25-foot (7.6-m) creation that imitates the sound of an orchestra.

Beautifully crafted instruments throughout history, and ones made from whatever could be found!

After Phoenix, we camped at  Lost Dutchman State Park, which is at the foot of Superstition Mountain. Hiking, cards, good food and fun ensued.

Found near Globe, Besh-ba-Gowah was one of many settlements for the Salado people dating to approximately 1200 AD. The ruins are some of the largest found in the state with an estimated 400 rooms, however, portions of the ruins were bulldozed for construction projects between the 1940s and 1980s. Today, the ruins are partially restored and a museum and bookstore exist at the site to provide more information about the ruins and the people who lived there.

Can't believe we don't have  pictures, but wanted to mention that we managed to meet up with John VanDerZwaan, Harris's friend from high school. He met us at a camping spot somewhere along our route to New Mexico.

Candy likes the scenic routes...this was a pull out at the top of a very very very windy road.

We stopped for an afternoon at Truth or Consequences...and found a flea market in progress...didn't buy anything though!

Roper Lake? some other spot? don't remember. Regardless, this is where John joined us for dinner?


We headed for Albuquerque, New Mexico, to visit college days friends, Jim and Diane Lindstrom at their new home. We camped outside the city and visited them and old town for a couple of days. We have pictures on our phones, but not here. hmmm.It was great fun to see them and catch up.

After Albuquerque, we split up. We headed for Utah, Idaho, Oregon and home. Candy and Rick headed for Denver to visit their kids before going home to Montana. We kept in touch with our phones about weather and sights along the way.  We only hit snow the first morning out of Albuquerque, and that wasn't too bad.

Strange pillars in Utah...always a wonder.
We arrived home April 6th. We wanted to come home before Easter, and in time to host a going away party for Kyle, Serenity, River and Skye, who were moving back to Juneau. Because they were staying at our house while we were gone, we ended up sleeping in Howie in the driveway until the 20th. Nice to have an extra room when you need it! Since we were having problems with the installed house battery, Harris put in a pair of new agm batteries that should give us just over 100 amphours to use when not hooked up! This should be better when camping in national parks.

Spring Training 2017

Friday Feburay 24th - March 26th (Days 515-545)

It has been a wetter and colder winter in Lake Stevens than usual and Harris has been ready to leave for Phoenix for more than awhile. He had to wait until the condo work was done and a new tennant selected before he could go. Judy was left behind and the silver lining in the dark winter clouds were the grandkids River and Skye. (At least that was what Harris kept telling himself.) He left Friday early in the morning and was in an Oregon Costco before the sun rose, waiting to fill up with diesel at 6AM. Although he brought chains for the mountain passes, none were needed as he crossed into California in the mid afternoon. By the evening of the next day he was entering Phoenix.

Phoenix was experiencing its coldest Feburary in recent memory so Harris wasn't able to change from long pants into shorts until almost a week later! In fact, the heater was needed for several mornings to chase off the chill.  For the first several games Harris ended up sitting in the sun rather than his habitual shady seats and long pants and long sleeved shirts were the order of the day.

Fortuantely within the first week the sun came back into play and a high pressure came along and entrenched itself within the Southwest. This resulted in higher temperatures. Records were broken.  Temps were 18 degrees above normal (90-97) in the next 3 weeks. Harris did not complain. Judy continued to be drenched by record breaking rain in Seattle.

Harris has Spring Training pretty much down to a routine. Upon waking up and checking the weather, it's off for the daily walk. Afterwards, it's coffee and the downloaded newspaper. He has several grocery store stops where food will beckon with a "on sale take me home for dinner" sign. Then it's off to the day's baseball game where he eats his lunch and enjoys both the baseball and the weather. By that time it's late afternoon and time to head to the RV park and prepare dinner. The evening consists of reading or watching downloaded shows capped by oldies music at bedtime.

Rick came down from Montana a little later than usual and showed up on March 17th in his new Sportsmobile rig. Rick and Harris have been doing this long enough to only need a day to mesh two individual routines into one.

Things that needed fixing on this trip incuded one cabinet hinge, new router, new nanostation, bike flat, bike fork that needed to be frozen into place, replace gfi plug in the bathroom, replace led light above sink.

Before they knew it, it was time to pick up the wives from the airport on March 26th and adapt the routine to accommodate four people weary of the rain and snow and enjoy the warmth of Arizona.


Some of the highlights follow:

Lionel and Gayle introduced Harris to Fired Pies on the day of his arrival. Harris has gone back several times since and then introduced Rick to the yummy treat.

The official baseball calendar of the month.

Consider this picture the typical weather day...sunny! Although the temps ranged from 60 to 95.

Harris managed to back Howie up to and then past the phone wiring pedestal which crunched the water pipe. Water to the entire park was turned off while repairs were made. Luckily, they were able to fix it in 30 mins. (and they didn't charge Harris for the "event").

A favorite...salad with breaded chicken, avocado, tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles, and of course lettuce.

One of several night games where the temperature was in the upper 70's.

Harris learned of an annual Folk Festival held in Glendale Sahuaro Ranch. This will become an annual tradition.

Harris also kept tabs on the Baseball World Classic thanks to his kids' Christmas gift of MLB TV.

This picture represents the atypical bocce ball game where Rick gets all of his balls very close to the marker ball. Harris lucked out and spoiled "the usual result".

A game where the temperature dropped to a chilly 60 degrees. They needed to bundle up.

A new dish to the Spring Training menu. Chicken breast stuffed with feta cheese and asparagus.

Rick working on his "Relaxation pose" while awaiting the arrival of Candy and Judy the next day.

Visiting Mt Rainier

Revisiting Judy's Mountain August 16-19th (Days 511-514)

Going to Mt. Rainier is an annual event for us. This year we decided to go to the Sunrise (east) side of the mountain. The campground within the park isn't a good one for Howie (too uneven, and too crowded anyway). We found this forest service campground a few years ago, and enjoyed the quiet, shaded sites. It's called Silver Springs. Since we arrived on a Tuesday, there were plenty of sites to choose from, although most had reserved signs for the upcoming weekend. The sites are large, well spaced and very shady from large trees. We welcomed the shade since it was over 80 degrees! (Judy's melting point.) It is right beside the one and only road here, so it's a bit noisy from traffic during the day, but not at night.

Hard to see stars at night with this canopy above!

All of this space was ours.

The best part of going to Sunrise is how close the mountain seems. We parked at the end of the lot so we could spread out a bit, unrolling the recently repaired awning to enjoy lunch after hiking.

If you look closely at the right side of the mountain, you can see steam...not clouds...coming up from a vent. We watched this off and on over the 3 days we were there.

Our first hike, up the side of the hill....not a lot of climbing, but starting out at 6400' and hot sun made it challenging enough.

Happy hikers! (yeah, right)...but happy to be out in the mountain air and sunshine. The air smelled like the trees and bushes...very different up here.

A view of the parking lot from our trail.

Harris had a similar picture taken from the Paradise side  made into a canvas for Judy last year...so we're comparing the view here.

More pictures of the steam venting from the volcano.

A view of the valley...along the Silver Fir trail.

We only went for a few days to escape Seattle's heat. Friday night, Harris went outside to get a shot of the moon at home. It was bright orange.

Taidnapam Park

Thursday July 7th - Sunday July 10th (Days 507-510)


Marilyn and Gene invited us to join them camping at Taidnapam Park, which is a Tacoma Public Utilities park near Randal, Wa...Mt St Helens territory. It was a good trip, almost the exact opposite of our last outing...Montana was HOT, and while Taidnapam wasn't cold, it did rain a lot over the course of the four days.

Marilyn's friends, Al and Sharon Brown also came along....Judy's taking refuge under their fifth wheel during a rain storm.

We walked every morning along logging roads, following streams that fed into Riffe Lake below the campground.

One of our campsites. We used the screen house here more for the rain than for the bugs.

Guess this little guy wanted out of the rain as well.

Harris cooked dinner over the grill on Friday night....very tasty chicken!

Marilyn's granddaughter, Maddy, wanted s'mores for dessert.

We left Sunday morning, leaving in plenty of time to stop in Kirkland on the way home for River's 3rd birthday party. The cake was beautiful, but she was really only interested in the frosting.:)