On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Evergreen, CO

Wednesday morning   July 29, 2015   (Second post of this travelogue)

I thought I might make a couple of additional comments to finish up this trip.

Saturday night we went to a rather “famous” restaurant:  Ruth’s Diner (link).  This restaurant is up in the foothills above Salt Lake and has been in operation since 1930.  We got their early (about 5:00) and that was a good thing.  We got to eat on the patio among huge trees.  The food is what some folks call “comfort” food.  They also had great desserts.  By the time we left, the place was jammed with folks waiting for tables.

Sunday we started our trip home.  I had checked to make sure that we could get into the Holiday Inn in Craig, CO (our typical stop).  Turns out that the Holiday Inn facility had been sold.  So we adjusted our plans to stop in Vernal, UT and stay at a great Holliday Inn Express.  We had hoped to get further, but the towns are few and far between on that stretch of US 40. 

Our trip on Sunday was a bit over 300 miles.  We took a break in Kremmling CO to have lunch and for me to say hi to the owner of a snowmobile/ATV dealership that I had worked with when we were testing snowmobile belts in the late 90’s.  The owner remembered me and we chatted about old times for a few minutes.  Turns out that there is a specific Gates belt that is in pretty high demand for the Polaris snowmobiles.

We arrived home about 3:30 and quickly cleaned out the rented car and returned it.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from Salt Lake City, UT

Saturday evening  July 25, 2015   (First post of this travelogue)

We have made our way to Salt Lake for Pat’s Stampin’ Up! convention.  We are staying at the Hiltion this year (the Marriott was booked up).

We left Evergreen Tuesday morning and had planned to make our usual stop in Green River, UT.  While Green River is a very small town, it is about the only stop between Grand Junction and Salina, UT and as such is it a fairly popular place to stay for the night.  We tried to get reservations at our two favorite hotels and they were booked up.  We ended up driving to Price, UT for the night.  We stayed at a very modern Holiday Inn Express and it was great.  It made for a longer first day, but the drive to Salt Lake was less than 200 miles.   

I have planned to visit an IHC truck collector in Green River after we had settled in.  Because of the situation, Pat and I drove to his house and I did a relatively quick “survey” of his collection.  He had maybe 15 IHC vehicles of various models at his house and apparently has a bunch more stored south of town.  His collection is pretty rough.  Each of the vehicles could be restored, but each would take a lot of work.  His main focus is on what is called the Travelette truck which was about the only four door truck made in the 60s.  He had several of them along with some Scouts and other misc. vehicles.  It was fun to see them, but he must be about my age and will never get even a small part of his collection restored.  Oh well, he is having fun gathering them up.

We are making this trip in a rented car.  The PT Cruiser transmission has been acting up.  On the way home from Fairplay (to see granddaughter Isabella show her pig at the county fair), it really acted up and finally set a fault code.  I replaced the indicated sensor, and it seemed to cure the problem, but we did not want to trust the car without more test miles.  It is a ton more fun to drive something that you don’t have to worry about.

Pat’s convention is a day shorter this year.  The attendance seems to be pretty good (about 3,000 demonstrators).  Last night Pat (we) hosted a dinner for her “downline” at the Olive Garden.  In total there were 14 people (see photo) and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Thursday I drove to Hooper, UT to visit my friend Kent.  Kent has had stage 4 cancer for several years but seems to be doing reasonably well.  We are friends as the result of bus activities and always have a good time BS’ing about all kinds of stuff.

Friday was a state holiday:  Pioneer Days (link).  They celebrate the arrival of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormons into the Salt Lake region (1847).  When I say celebrate, I mean it.  They have a huge parade and many of the businesses close for the day.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has a major concert as a part of the celebration.  We have attended the concert in years past, but it was held a couple of days before we arrived this year.  I have attached a couple of pictures of participants waiting for the parade to start.

We will be leaving tomorrow and taking our normal route home via US 40.  It is a beautiful drive.

That is all for now.

Hello from Evergreen, CO

Tuesday evening   July 7, 2015   (Second post of this travelogue)

Again a note to our email readers:  the process needs some work.  I looked at the email version on my iPhone and it looked terrible.  On my computer email software, it looked better (at least the photos displayed), but the Google map did not show.  Everything looks good on the website.  I will take a look at what I can do to make the email version look better (at least it is on the list {grin}).

The photo below shows our “group”.  Included in the Photo are the Bergmans, plus Irina, Matthias and Viktor.  Irina and her family joined us for the last few days of our stay.  They rented an apartment in Frisco and had dinner with us each night.  In addition, they went on hikes with the Bergmans.

Sadly, we were pretty close to the medical helicopter crash that occurred on Friday (7/3).  We heard all the sirens, saw the smoke, and Damon could see the flames with the binoculars.  The photo below is from the Denver Post.

As noted in the previous post, we were really “slugs” for the two weeks.  Pat played a lot of games with the Bergmans and read several books.  I managed to read Armand Hammer’s biography (I am not much of a book reader and the 400 plus pages were a bit daunting).  I also spent some time redoing my consulting website:  http://bindermc.com/ .  As has been the case with my other sites, I converted it to a WordPress platform.  Each time I do a conversion, I tend to press the software capability a bit and this was no exception.  To look at it, it looks pretty simple, but there was some pretty intense “tuning” at code level to get it the way I wanted it.  Good thing I enjoy the challenge, as there is no way I could justify the energy I spend on these sites.

Frisco has a fabulous fireworks show that is synchronized with music broadcast over FM radio.  While the rest of the group hiked down to the lake for the show, we opted to stay in the bus.  Our site was ideal, as we could watch out the windshield.  We cranked up the stereo and had a wonderful show.

We left the campsite about 9:45 AM Sunday and still hit bad traffic.  That was not all bad, as it let me cruise up the pass to the tunnel at part throttle.  While the traffic was slow, it was not stop and go – that is the way you want it with a clutch based system.  We got home about noon.

We are not sure what the future holds for travelling in the bus for the rest of the year.  Our travel budget (funded by my teaching) is getting low since I have not had any assignments recently.  We will be travelling to Salt Lake City later this month (in the PT Cruiser) to attend Pat’s Convention.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from Dillon, CO

Thursday afternoon July 2, 2015 (First post of this travelogue)

First of all, I wanted to mention to our readers who subscribe to an email version of this blog, that they may have recently received a strange email of a post from 2013. As I had mentioned previously, I changed from a Blogger hosted blog to a self-hosted blog using WordPress as the platform. The main reason for that conversion process was the widely reported failure of the Blogger email system. Now, it seems to have come alive and sent out a very old blog. Frustrating!!!!!!

We are on our annual trip to the Heaton Bay campground in Dillon, CO (see map) for a two week stay.

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For several years this trip was a “family vacation” with all the family here at one time or another. Now, two of the girl’s families have very hectic schedules that do not permit planning for this vacation. On this trip, we are with Kelly and her family. In addition, have a special guest: Irina and her family. Irina was our German exchange student from ‘81/’82 and we have stayed in fairly close contact with her over the years. She, husband Matthias, and their son Viktor also joined us here in 2012.

We left Evergreen Sunday 6/21/15 and drove a whopping 60 miles to get here {grin}. We will depart Sunday 7/5

We are in a beautiful spot this year that overlooks parts of the lake and the beautiful surrounding mountains. We should have a great view of the fireworks shows (Dillon and Fisco)

We have really been “slugs” the past few days. Life was really hectic leading up to this trip and we just wanted to crash. That said, we have done a few things. On the 24th, we went to the movies as a part of granddaughter Madison’s birthday celebration. On Tuesday 6/30 we went on a 5 hour cruise of the lake on a pontoon boat (see pictures). The rest of the time we have been catching up on reading and relaxing.

These photos show the pontoon boat on an island in Dillon Reservoir and

Pat and I with the granddaughters (plus a friend and Benny) on the island

The weather has been quite variable. In the daytime it can get pretty warm, but many afternoons/evenings have been rainy. In some cases the storms were pretty strong.

We have to smile a bit about our bus/toad vs our neighbor. His unit is a 2004 Newell ($1.5 million new) along with all his toys (see photos).

That is all for now.

Monday afternoon May 25, 2015 (first post of this trip)

As noted in our previous post, Pat flew/drove to St. Louis for a conference. She left Denver Monday 5/11/15. I stayed at home working on getting the bus ready to drive to Iowa. I had planned to leave about mid-week, but the projects just kept adding up. I finally left on Saturday (5/16/15) and drove to Lexington, NE and stayed at the Walmart. I got into Prescott about 3:00 on Sunday and Pat and Jeanne got here a couple hours later.

We normally stop at the Walmart in North Platte, but the main drag is under construction and it is tight getting in the parking area. The Lexington Walmart is much easier to get into.

Our stay in Prescott has been fun (as always). That said, it is a difficult time for the Birts. Bill’s dad passed away a couple of weeks ago and his mother is in hospice at the house. That really makes a big demand on their time and obviously affects their emotions. To make matters worse, it has been quite cold and rainy. Bill was able to get the corn planted, and a bit of beans, but now he will not be able to get to the field for several days. That will put the beans behind a bit, but the hay is an even bigger problem. That is extremely frustrating to a farmer. I guess that I should add that those emotions are affected even more by the very poor crop prices.

We generally plan to be in Iowa for Memorial day so that Pat can decorate the relatives graves. Normally that is also a good time as far as the weather is concerned. This year it has been down in the 30s a couple of nights and we had to run the heater.

One of the things we enjoy when we visit are the “road trips”. Bill loves to drive us around the area and we enjoy it even more. This year they are looking at upgrading their RV trailer, so one of the trips was to Atlantic to look at some units. Here is the route we took: Prescott…Carbon…Cumberland…Wiota…Brayton…Atlantic…Tinville…Dickeyville…Dog Hollow…Prescott. Those town names really roll off your tongue {grin}.

With all the rain, it is so lush and green back here. The attached photo is the scene I see from my seat in the bus:

That is all for now.

Thursday May 14, 2015.

We got home from Gunnison (last blog) on Sunday. Pat repacked her bags and I took her down to the Bergmans. She stayed the night and went to the airport with Damon (he had a 6:00 AM flight and Pat had her flight at 7:00 AM). She flew to Kansas City where she was met by her cousin Jeanne. Together they drove to St. Charles where they are staying with Kay Brown.

They are attending the National Genealogical Society Conference (link).  All three of the ladies are quite involved in researching family genealogy.  This is a four day conference that seems to be very intense.  That said, I suspect they are finding time to have fun.

Pat and Kay have been friends for over 50 years.  It started from a friendship I had with Kay’s deceased husband, Ken.  Ken and I knew each other from our high school days.  Ken taught me how to paint cars.  He used to paint midget racers in the garage behind the duplex that they lived in.  While we were in the garage,  Kay and Pat would play card/board games.  About the time we were married, Ken and Kay bought a house and we moved into the duplex they had lived in.  Ken and I continued to attend car shows around the country right up until he passed.  Recently Pat and Kay renewed their friendship.  About two years ago we visited her and her boys on the way to a rally.  We had a ball!

Kay graciously offered for Pat and Jeanne to stay with her during the conference.  On Sunday Pat and Jeanne will drive to Jeanne’s where I will join them for a short stay.

I am driving the bus back to Iowa.  I had hoped to leave today, but there have been so many small projects that needed to get done.  My plans now call for a Saturday departure.

That is all for now.

Saturday May 9, 2015  (First blog of this trip) Friday we left Evergreen and drove to Gunnison — approximately 160 miles.  We are staying at the Quality Inn:

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We are here for  Thomas Jeute's (our grandson's) graduation from Western State Colorado University.  He graduated with a petroleum geology degree.  Words can not describe how proud we are of his accomplishments!  Here is a photo of the graduation ceremony setting:

The weather prediction for the ceremony was a bit iffy.  They chose to have the ceremony on the field (as opposed to indoors with limited seating).  The weather was OK at the 10:00 start, but at a bit before 11:00 it started to snow.  It spit off and on during the rest of the ceremony.  We had dressed for cold weather, so it was not too bad.

Almost all of the family is here except for grandson Josh (and his dad Dan) who is competing in a major swim meet.

Thomas has received  a paid internship contract with Antero Resources (link).  The paperwork suggests it will be a three month internship.  Antero is in downtown Denver and Thomas and friend Rob (also has internship with Antero) will be staying with us for that period.  We are very excited to have these great young men stay with us!

The men are going to cook breakfast for the mothers tomorrow and then we will head home.  It is predicted to snow quite a bit, but we brought the Durango, so we should be in good shape.

That is all for now.

Since 2008 Pat and I have blogged about our travels.  The emphasis was travel in our Eagle bus/RV conversion (1985 Eagle).  However, we expanded that to include other forms of travel and a few misc. posts as well.

We created a blog on blogspot.com and it served us well over the years.  Our readership is small, but that is fine, as our main goal was to document our travels for our own enjoyment (when we revisit some of the posts).

Most of our readers are fellow bus folks or family.  Most signed up to receive the blog in an email form.  That process used a third party software called Feedburner.  It worked fine for a couple of years, but there are now many complaints on the internet that blogs are no longer being forwarded to subscribers.

I have been wanting to get better control of our blog and decided that now is the time.  I have been using the WordPress software (info here) for several projects including two of my project pages as well as our Eagles International website (link).  To be clear about my work with the Eagles International site, I co-administer the site with a professional web developer — she developed the website and I developed the forum.  However, I also do some administration on the website side as well.  [[how is that for blog drift {grin}]].

In any case, I have imported all of our posts from blogger to this site.  The import played a few games with the formatting of the text, but you will get the gist of the blog posts.

As noted above, one of the main reasons for making this change was to allow our readers to subscribe to our blog via email.  Since we do not post on a periodic basis (mostly when we travel), the email option works best for most folks.

That is all for now.

Kelly (daughter) wanted to celebrate her birthday and her 4 year cancer free anniversary in a special way. She decided that she would try to obtain tickets to both The Price is Right and the Ellen DeGeneres shows. She applied for 4 tickets so that Pat and her sisters could go if they wanted.

The good news is that she got both sets of tickets. The bad news is that Judy and Lisa could not attend.

Sunday Pat and Kelly flew to Los Angeles and then took a long taxi ride (maybe not in miles, but took a long time because of terrible traffic) to Burbank where they stayed in the Courtyard (map).

Monday they got up about 4:00 and went to the studio where The Price is Right is filmed. They were 12th and 13th in line. They did not get called down, but had a great time.

Today the went to the Ellen Show and were 13th and 14th in line (see a pattern here?). Ellen’s guest were Candace Bergen and Wanda Sykes. Candace has written a book and each member of the audience got one. But, the great thing was that Ellen gave each member of the audience TWO $500 gift certificates to Best Buy!!

Tomorrow they will tour the huge Warner Brothers Studio lot. After that they will head to the airport to return home.