Laura-N-Sasha.com

Long time no see

2008-09-18T09:09:00.001-04:00

Hi All,
Long time no see. I've been on our own website for a while now. If you want to see what has been going on with us, check out www.Laura-n-Sasha.com

Trying to post to blogger my own video

2006-08-26T18:30:00.000-04:00

it seems as though I can post a YouTube video to my blog, but have not been able to do the post of our own Sasha to our blog. We will continue to keep trying. Thanks for looking.
Got it to work, now we'll see if it works on other websites.

Sasha & The Weather At Tall Pines Campground

2006-08-26T18:28:00.000-04:00


Talking about the weather at Tall Pines Campground during the Mid-Atlantic Truck Camper Rally in April. We were playing around with my camera (See www.Laura-n-Sasha.com) and found it could take video.

2006-08-26T17:37:00.000-04:00

Ninja

incredible!

You Tube - My first time posting on the blog

2006-08-26T17:33:00.000-04:00

posted a You Tube video - just seeing this guy bounce around, why is he not on someone's gymnastics team?

Bought a Gun at Dicks Sporting Goods

2006-08-15T19:15:00.000-04:00

Buying a Gun at Dicks Sporting Goods Store

August 12, 2006

Now just so you know, this is our first gun, and we know some people will be agast that we bought one and others will like the idea, but we figure the reason to have it is for the wild life: whether or not it is people or animals. As we will be living in some remote areas this fall, we figured that it might be a good idea to have one.

So Sasha, in all his widsom, started looking around for the proper gun to have six months ago. As we are not going to use this for markmanship but for protection, we had decided on a shotgun not a rifle or hand gun. A handgun would not work against bears and a rifle you have to be precise, and shoot accurately. With a shotgun, you can fill it with buck shot and shoot. So he got info from the RV.net people (thanks) and then started calling around to Gun Dealers in the Washington DC area first.

He called up Walmart (yes they have guns!), Clark Brothers (family owned gun store in Warrenton), Gander Mountain (sporting store in PA), Bass Pro-Shops, Cabela's (almost all their stores), and Galayns (which is now Dick's Sporting Goods Store.) We ultimately found the shotgun at Dicks - right in the Dulles Center Mall - a shopping mall had the gun, can you believe it? I don't know about you, but the malls in NJ do not sell guns, so this was a new experience for me.

So Anyway, we went in, filled out all of the paperwork (Sasha had called up and explained that we live at one address but get our mail at another address which is a big deal when you get a gun), paid and was escorted out with our gun (it seems, although you can buy a gun in the mall, you can not walk out of the store without the sales person escorting you to the parking lot, I guess it is a liability to have guns in the store s0 this is how they get around that.) We went immediately home and put it away. So that is why Dicks Sporting Goods Store is one of the sponsors, they were good to us, so we are being good back to them.

Testing out a New PC Card & More Pictures of Arizona

2006-08-14T21:54:00.000-04:00

Testing out the Sprint PC Card & More Pictures of Arizona!

First a picture from Arizona while we were out in Walnut Creek: This is a picture of the cliff dwellings out there, they just truly amazing! Even looking back - we did go back in May, and it is taking me this long to get the pictures up - seeing that area makes me want to go back.

So anyway, about the sprint card, Sasha and I are going up to NJ and NY to get the Trailer and so we went up this evening. As we were headed to the Fort Henry Tunnel, I was uploading approximately 21 pictures to ImageShack.us with the Sprint PC card. It was going VERY fast (especially since we are used to the T-Mobile card which has dial-up speeds) This card has speeds closer to DSL which is fabulous. So anyway, we were getting closer and closer to the tunnel and I was like oh no, we are going to lose all the work of uploading those 21 files. BUT thankfully, right before the tunnel (and I am talk within a tenth of a mile) ImageShack stated that the pictures had upload, now what do you want to do?

So I decided that I should wait before I do anything on Blogger because I thought for sure, I would lose connection. Well Guess What! That was not the case, I had connection the entire time in the tunnel WOW, Boy I do like sprint out here. We will see if it is as good on non-interstate roads.

Sometimes it is a good Idea to stay on the trail, and other times, not so good. We are stuck in traffic, not too far from the Maryland Susquahanna Bridge and we are in bumper - to bumper traffic. It looks like there is an accident and I asked a trucker and they said that there was a five mile backup from construction. It is kind of funny, but since we are in the SuperDuty, we are almost level with the truckers! So he was able to talk to me at practically the same level. Sasha said, he probably thought I was super cool since I had the laptop, but I said that the trucker probably thought why didn;t she look it up on the web? Quite honestly, I did not even notice until we were slowing down. That is what happens when I write, I just do not pay attention to the stuff around me, The same is true when I read, as my entire family knows.

In a previous post, I had talked about the steps, so here is a picture of them - there are 240 steps going down (as well as up!)

After we had gone up and down all of those steps, we decided we needed to cool off, so we went to slide rock state park, well known for its natural slides of very cold water. Just taking the pictures the water looked cold!

But of course, we had some brave souls try out the water - not to slide, but to dip their feet in. Its no wonder that they are both Pisces.

This picture was too see further down the park area, They even have a diving area, as that part is very deep.

A picture of us after the cold water.

We managed to make it out of the bumper-to bumper traffic after 1.5 hours to go ~ 5 miles. We are going to stop at Flying J, our favorite gas station and fill up and I think I am going to stop working on the computer, my hands are getting tired, I guess it has been awhile since I have used this system to write and my arms and hands are not used to it.

Creating Moods

2006-08-10T13:01:00.000-04:00

Hi All,
Found this really cool site from someone else, as I was just surfing along - it is called PunkyMoods.com where you can show different moods for the day. So you will see on the side bar the mood that we have. Basically chilling out today, Sasha is on the couch, he's fine, just had some work done before we went away for the big travel session. Now we have to get into shape again soon. We will be picking up the trailer next week. I have been trying out a new Internet card, this one is from Sprint. It did not work in Purcellville, where I was at Magnolia's in the Mill (a very nice restuarant in Purcellville, VA) but that might be because of the very sturdy walls and no windows. It did work in Leesburg, at the Dulles Area Association of Realtors. I am an Affiliate member for DAAR and it worked quite well there.

I promise, some time this weekend I will have the rest of the pictures from Arizona up, and then the pictures where my and Sasha's Family came over for Sasha's Birthday Party.

Laura-n-Sasha.com

Walnut Creek Canyon, Arizona

2006-08-05T19:15:00.000-04:00

Continuing with the last full day with the Parents

As there were no other people on the trail, we could not get others to take our picture together, so we took each couple separately:

After we took the walk on the first trail at Walnut Creek Canyon, we decided we needed something to eat, so we had a picnic in the shade on the top part of the canyon.Mom took this one of us, so we returned the favor, and took one of them.

Once we were finished with the lunch, we went walking back to our truck, put everything but our water and cameras back, and took a couple of pictures at the top, before heading down the 240 stairs (No I did not count them, but that is what the brochure said there was!) The first trail was ~0.7 miles and the second was 0.9 miles which passes by 25 of the cliff dwelling rooms. We probably took pictures of several of them. It is amazing to me, but I would imagine that the people were smaller than we are now, as Dad (being 6'5") could have hit his head on many of the roofs. But some of the rooms were larger. Check it out below:

This was a tree that we saw on the side of the trail, it looked so beautiful that I had to take its picture.
This was one of the first cliff dwellings that we saw as we were going down. Obviously, we should stay on the trail, they put that sign there because there are those that do not pay attention to the signs. Which of course, is not right at all.
Sasha on the trail: He usually has no problem going down, but more problem going up, while I take my time going down and love going up. I think that is because I am afraid of falling down, I have had many experiences in my geology days where I fell down a mountain or two. Most of them happened out west, while I was working in Montana on dinosaur digs or at field camp. Sometimes the rocks are so slippery, it is easy to fall. So I am more careful now.

Here is a picture of the stairs looking up, which we will do shortly. I took this picture after going down, just to see where I had been. As you can see, there are dwellings within the cliffs. If you need to see them more closely, just click on the picture and it will give you the larger view. Here is another picture of the cliff dwellings over on the other side of the canyon. They had dwellings on both sides, so that winter one side, summer another side. Looking at a dwelling close up. Again, got to love the national and state parks, they allow you to see so much.

OK How do they fit through that hole? I am 6 feet tall and so is Sasha (Mom being the short one in our group at only 5 feet, 10 inches.) But even a five foot person, well, I realize they would have to duck, but still, seems quite small. Dad took this picture, but of course, he would not have been able to stand straight up if he was in the picture, he would have hit his head. And the rock here is very hard.

That is all the pictures for now, as I am being called to dinner. But I will upload more to www.ImageShack.us and then you can see what else we did that day. To see the previous post about the last full day: http://laura-n-sasha.blogspot.com/2006/07/last-full-day-in-arizona.html

trying out a new thing

2006-08-04T11:48:00.000-04:00

Hi all,
I am trying out something new, do not know if it will work or not. These are articles that I have on my work website but I wanted to see if they would work on a blogging website. We shall see!

Well, I have on the sidebar a bunch of articles that, when someone clicks on them, goes to Live Informed, a website that has very interesting articles. What they do, is allow people to link to these free articles and post them on your own website. What is really cool, is it allows you to get residual income from the clicks. I am testing it out with my website and some of my clients' websites, to see if people do click on the articles and on the links within the articles. If I find that they do work as expected, I will set up all of my clients with this residual income for their websites. I personally think it is very cool, but you do not start to get money until you hit the $50 threshold, which is a LOT of clicks. Again, I will play with this for a couple of months to test it out. You can see it in action here: http://www.salesthroughtechnology.com/News.htm where it goes to a page on my website rather than to Live Informed.

Last Full Day in Arizona

2006-07-27T18:44:00.000-04:00

June 1st 2006, the Last Full Day in Arizona with The Parents

On our last full-funfilled day, we decided to go up Oak Creek Canyon, to Walnut Creek Canyon and Slide Rock Canyon. This would be the last full day that we would have in Arizona, so we wanted to make the best of it. The next day would be going back to the airport and flying out kind of early, and getting home late that evening. We had a wedding that we were going to the day after that, and we wanted to be somewhat rested for it.

But for today, we wanted to go to some places that we had not been to yet, including the drive up from Sedona to Flagstaff. The road up is Route 89a and the area is called Oak Creek Canyon. There are tons of hiking trails along the road, and you have to have a state pass when you park along the road. We did not have one, as we really did not stop for very long, but when Sasha and I come here again, we will definitely get one.

I will try to deal with the fact that blogger only allows about 4 pictures for each post, so actually, I am going to try something new, this is from ImageShack.us: a website for people with lots of pictures.

This picture is supposed to be of Snoopy as he is lying down on the dog house. Sasha, of course, said it was something else entirely, but I won't put that into a family oriented post.

Here we are at the beginning of Oak Creek Canyon at the Visitor Center (Dad took the picture, it is Sasha, Laura and Mom in the picture.) There were tons of people here, which is kind of interesting as it was a week day. There were Indians selling jewelry and t-shirts plus other knick-knacks at this stop. It seemed a little weird to me that they would be selling here, but people obviously do it, and they set up and take down every day.

Here is a picture looking down into the canyon, lots of trees and very little water. We were looking over the edge and it was cooler here than in Sedona. We are starting to go up in elevation and that is good, as it gets cooler as we go.

These pictures are hosted by ImageShack.us, and I believe that you can click on the picture and see the full version of it. We shall see.
The red rocks of Sedona as we pass by.

It was interesting that I really did not want to look down too far, because if you went over the edge, no one would even know or come down after you, it was so far down.

I am noticing that the thumbnails on ImageShack are a little smaller than on Blogger, but again, if you click on them, it will show the larger picture.

This picture shows the road, but we first thought it was the creek, but it is too big.

At the overlook, it was very windy. Dad took this picture.

This is the road that we were just on, very curvy and there were quite a few people on the road. But Imagine if it was a weekend? Then there would be lots more. This road strongly suggests that you do not ride your bikes on it, as people have been hit.

We managed to get some one to take our picture after we took theirs. So here we all are at the overlook. It was starting to get crowded, so after this picture, we headed back to the car and kept going up the canyon to the next stop.

Well, I am totally psyched, this ImageShack and Blogger seem to be working well together. I might have to go to a library and see if the wireless system works as easy as this does, because I would rather not change companies and blogging systems if I do not have to. I know, I know, I am a little wishy washy in this regard, I keep trying to figure out what is best, but truly, if you go back to all the posts and pictures, there is quite a lot here, and I do not really want to post somewhere else, because I would have to re-do everything, ug, that would be DAYs of work. And this is supposed to be fun.

Here is Mom and the Map of the Canyon. The signs here are much more worn than in the other places, maybe because this is state run rather than nationally run. I am not sure, I actually could be wrong about that, but these are made of wood and the others are made of plastic or metal, as you will see in earlier and later posts. So don't know, no clue, but it is interesting to ponder.

This is the last picture of the canyon that we took at this overlook, and then we went on to Walnut Creek.

Walnut Creek

Just for the fun of it, I will try to keep all of this day on one post. I have been saving it after every few pictures, and everything seems to be working, but I still get a little worried. But hey, that is the fun of it too, to learn something new on how to do things, right?
Walnut Creek is another Indian Ancient Site (I don't really like to call them history sites as an anthropologist once told me that history was the time that people would write things down and before that is considered prehistory.) So these sites are considered prehistoric, before writing.
The Sinagua Indians at Walnut Canyon NM are talked about in this next picture, and like I stated before, this sign is metal, instead of wood. It is much easier to read and people can not deface it as easy as the wood. (NM means National Monument from the picture above.)Looking over the edge, it is a long way down to the canyon. Back when the Indians lived there full time, the creek did have water, but now there is a dam upriver, so the creek became a dry stream. Another view of the canyon and again the long way down. You can also see the layered rocks from here, where there is different types of geology going on, way back before the Indians arrived here. There are brochures describing the geology of the area, but just for fun, I will put some info here, so you can know about it. (I used to work as a Geologist, seems almost like another lifetime ago.)
Way back - about 277 Million Years Ago, this area was a desert, with sand dunes, along a coast. It became hard after continual deposits of sand dune on sand dune, with some other materials thrown in, and because sandstone. Then there was a thin layer where there was missing time - geologists call this an unconformity (basically, they have no idea what was going on during this time - using a long word makes them look smart!)

Then, above the sandstone and the missing time is limestone, which formed because there was a shallow ocean that existed in this area, and the skeletons of the animals in that sea were from calcium carbonate. The skeletons fell to the floor of the sea and became limestone. Some of the larger creatures, such as animals like clams and sponges, also existed here. This is the layer that was used to make the homes for the Indians later on.

It seems very important to stay on the trail here:

Schnebly Road Again

2006-07-26T18:10:00.000-04:00

Schnebly Road Again

I guess you could say we really like this road, maybe because each time we go, we see something different. This time around we saw elk or moose, can't remember which ones they are, plus the light looked different and the marshmellows and pancakes were more visible in the light. We checked out the campground near the road, and found it to be ok, but there are people that stay there year-round, I'm sure. It almost seems like a motor park rather than a campground. But the office was closed and there was no literature on the prices outside, so we could not even pick up some info about it. But here is The Road again, so that you can see it.

Also, about the Moose/Elk - NO I did not get out of the car and NO they were not that close. I used the zoom on my handy-dandy camera and then used software to really zoom in. So it might actually look a little fuzzy if you zoom into it. They kept walking behind trees and I kept taking pictures until I could get one that I could use. The moose were up in the higher elevations not down by the mudpies and marshmellows. At the higher elevations, you have pine trees and mushrooms and at the lower elevations you have cactus and bugs.

Dead Horse Ranch State Park

2006-07-26T17:49:00.000-04:00

Dead Horse Ranch State Park

After our ride on the ATVs, we got back in the car and checked out Dead Horse Ranch State Park. This is definitely a park that Sasha and I would come back to with our camper, as it had a beautiful lake and great amenities, like clean bathrooms and good campsites. Plus, there are quite a few different types of birds and wildlife, which keeps it interesting. I saw a roadrunner and tried to get its picture, of course, it kept running away. But the lake was so beautiful, I kept taking pictures of it. Also, there were two or three camphosts at this park, I guess because it is so spread out. The last picture can only sort of capture the beauty, the reflections on the water.

After this, we went to back to Schnebly Road again, so please check out the top post to see some cool pictures.

ATVing with The Parents Part II

2006-07-26T17:33:00.000-04:00

ATVing with The Parents Part II

The line-up was the trail person, then my Dad, then Mom, then Laura, then Sasha. Sasha has a flag on the back of his ATV so that the guide could see how everyone is doing; and Sasha is not allowed to go ahead of anyone else. Since he is the most experienced we figured it was best that he was in the back, otherwise he might leave us in the dust. So I was the only one that had the camera, and so a couple of these pictures are of Mom's back. Of course, I got Sasha too, as he was riding along side of me. And the guide also took some pictures of us.

After the ride we went off on another road trip to Dead Horse State Park (which was close-by) so check out the next post to see those pictures. And no, there are not any dead horses.

ATVing with The Parents

2006-07-26T17:13:00.000-04:00

ATVing with the Parents (Part I)

I was not sure if my parents were going to do this with us, when we first mentioned it to them. Sasha wanted to go ATVing and we were able to find a company that could do it mid-week. We had suited up and got helmets and gloves, and I was a little worried for me, but mostly for my parents. I need not have worried of course, as they did great. Mom kept looking out for rocks and swerved once in a big way, but did not tip over or anything-although my heart went to my mouth on that one, she was OK and enjoying herself. Way to go Mom and Dad! So check out the pictures that we have for that ride.

more pictures of Mingus Mountain

2006-07-26T16:41:00.000-04:00

we shall see if these pictures post.

Unbelievable, this one did so I will put in a few more.

Looking out the window, seeing the world fly by.

Hopefully not too fast as it is a long way down!

You can see them barely, but there are donkeys in this picture. They are tethered to the tree so that they won't wander away but I still think it is not good for them, there is hardly any shade.

This is the road that we just came up. And will go back down later.

Well, it looks as though I can put more pictures into Blogger, so I shall to do so.

Something that makes me mad!

2006-07-18T12:18:00.000-04:00

Now I know this will take some time, but I am quite peeved about something, and who knows if it can be resolved.

I live in Cascades - Sterling VA and we have been getting solicitation from all types of home improvement people who have been putting flyers on our doors. I have a few neighbors that are on vacation or their homes are vacant, and these flyers pile up OR fly away, creating a mess and an environmental problem. This is what I posted to our forum for of Cascades, but who knows, maybe others can do the same, and flood these solicitors with calls telling them to stop trespassing on our home: You can visit the Cascades Site

I am getting flyers of all different types now-including one from Owens Corning Basement finishing who is in Maryland.

I called them up and stated that I did not want to receive flyers from them anymore, nor did my neighbors. We have several vacant homes on our street and like others have stated, it is a neon sign saying rob me now!

The people handing out these flyers do not speak English so they would not be able to read the signs and I do not think the solicitors' license thing will work, because they are not talking to you, they are just leaving stuff all over the lawn and doorway.

I suggest we call up each one of the solicitors and get them to stop spreading their junk in our neighborhood. Then we need to get a no solicitor's degree out there.

I can't believe it, the guy from this company called back with a RECORDED MESSAGE stating that they were unable to comply with my request. Can people please flood their phone number stating that they do not want their flyers? I think that if enough people call and demand that they no longer put up these flyers, they will stop.

The number is 1-800-227-3636.This has me completely peeved, so I am going to report them to the Better Business Bureau. Hopefully something will happen! Thanks for letting me vent.
And thanks to those that read. Hopefully if enough people call the different solicitors and tell them to stop, they will.

Mingus Mountain

2006-07-02T09:28:00.000-04:00

Here is Mingus Mountain and the views that it offers:

This was one of the views, and you can see

the road below.

The pictures are of Mingus and the town of Prescott

It was such blue skies we took lots of pictures, but there is already a haze in the air.

Some of the pictures are on this post and some are on the next post.

Prescott National Forest

2006-07-02T09:13:00.000-04:00

Prescott National Forest

Before you see nature, I wanted you to see what the mining industry does with the waste, which you can see the tailings from the mine.

I took a sign of Prescott National Forest so that we know where we are:

Here we are and the world below!

And yes, we take pictures of elevation because we live at sea level!

OK I seem to be averaging 4 pictures per post, please bear with me. and go to the post above for pictures of Mingus Mountain.

Jerome Pictures Part II

2006-07-02T08:56:00.000-04:00

Jerome Pictures II

We then went outside and took some pictures, they had signs showing what the building were and where they were located. Here are some of them.

The top building is the hospital, then there was a hotel, and then at the bottom is the jail.

This other picture ====>>>

shows the jail and the earth around it. Notice how the earth is cut. It seems that there was either some rain or an explosion and the jail (which had two prisoners in it at the time) slid down the hill. The two inside were not harmed, but the sheriff decided that they had had enough punishment and let them go. The jail is now a private residence.

We had lunch at the Jerome Grand Hotel, probably the only real hotel establishment in the town, with an old-fashioned elevator, and great restaurant. It was the United Verde Hospital when it opened in 1927, then it closed in the 1950's then it was converted into a hotel in 1996. Here is a view from the Asylum Restaurant.

After eating, we decided to check out some more of nature, and so went to Prescott National Forest and to Mingus Mountain.

Please check out the next post for Prescott and Mingus.

Jerome Pictures

2006-07-02T08:36:00.000-04:00

Jerome Arizona, May 30 Traveling with the Parents

I was talking about the abandoned buildings in the last post, I think they are more unusual here because they have some historical attachment and so they leave them up. I guess people want to see them. And several of these buildings have been turned into private homes.

Before we got to the Jerome State Historical Park, we came upon one of the mining pieces of equipment-the little daisy mine, two views to see how big it is and the sign on it.

Once we got to the state park, we took a picture of the view on the one side of the park and checked out some of the displays that they had outside:

We went in and checked out the history of the mine. It was very interesting to see how people lived during that time as well as the geology of the area and how they made the mines work.

Please go to the post above for more pictures.

May 30 Tugizoot Pictures and Jerome Arizona

2006-07-02T08:13:00.000-04:00

Hi All, Trying again to get the pictures up, of Tugizoot and Jerome

This is a picture of the ruins below us.

This is a view of the rooms and the copper cleanup. ========>>>>

Where you see the letter J, that is for the town of Jerome. It seems that towns out west have the first letter of their town painted into the hillside of that town. Back east, we don't have hills and we don't have the room to paint letters, but I think it is nice to see it out here.

Once we started out to Jerome, we kept seeing the letter J: closer and closer we came.

Here are some of the houses on the hill of Jerome. Some of them have historical significance. After a major windy road, we finally came to Jerome. The elevation is a bit higher than the valley below.
When the town was founded is important, as it had a boom period for quite a while, then came the bust. When it was at the boom, there were over 15,000 people living on that hill. Now there are about 100 people living in Jerome, and it is mostly for tourists. It states it is a living ghost town.
As we were going to the Jerome State Historic Park we kept seeing abandoned buildings. Now of course, we see abandoned buildings back east, but these seemed more important, maybe because there were so many of them, and none of them had any graffiti. Ok it looks like I can't post another picture. Looks like I have to have Jerome on a new post.

May 30th Arizona with The Parents II

2006-06-28T19:11:00.000-04:00

Hi all, having some problems again, maybe because of the storms coming in...Don't know but let's see if the pictures come in.

Well, it worked, of course I did not realize I used the medium sized picture for this first one. Anyway, This picture is showing the copper fields across the way from the ruins. You can see how it is a bright orange color, which indicates copper tailings.

OK back to the correct size, here is another picture of the ruins, closer up and you can see how the rooms are laid out.

Here is a view of the rooms when we were at the top, plus the views beyond.

Here we are at the top. Now handicapped people - especially those that can not climb or walk on latters would not be able to get to the top. But you can get everywhere else. Also, some people have trouble looking over the sides as they are afraid of heights but the views are great so it is worth the climb.

View of the Ruins from above and the Green Fields below. This is where they farmed the land, trying to be as close to the creek/river as possible.

It looks as though I can not post any more pictures to this post so I will have to do a few at a time.

May 30th Arizona with The Parents

2006-06-28T17:44:00.000-04:00

May 30th Arizona with The Parents - Tuzigoot and Jerome, Arizona

Hi All, Back again with some more pictures of ancient ruins and ghost towns. On May 29th, we made it a liazy day, just sitting at the pool and having a cook-out, so no pictures. But on May 30th, we started out again, to check out the Ruins at Tuzigoot and the Historical Ghost/Mining Town of Jerome. What follows are pictures during this day. Thanks for looking and see you at the next post.

This is the sign at the beginning of the trail. It is truly amazing - National Parks and Monuments that are paved so that all can see them, and these great signs that you can read and they do not need upkeep.

Here is a view from below of the Ruins at Tuzigoot. It is very impressive both far away and up-close.

Like I stated earlier, you can see the path. On one side is the ruins and on the other side is the Reclamation Site - where copper tailings had been put on the soil and now, they are cleaning it up by putting clean earth on top. The company (this land is not part of the National Monument) is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, probably so that they do not get dinged by the government (and the EPA.) The earth will hopefully return to grassland/shrubs and other vegetation.

A really Interesting Link for All AOL users

2006-06-23T17:12:00.000-04:00

Hi All,
In the news today was a guy named Vincent Ferrari who tried to cancel his AOL account. I have worked with several clients, telling them that since they have DSL or Cable Internet, they do not need the $25 per month charge, and that they can go to a $5 one for the web version of AOL (that way they can keep their screen name.) But ultimately, I say to my clients, get rid of AOL. It is not necessary to have anymore. So no suprise when I saw this video, first on CNN and then on WNBC. I have actually made calls such as this for my clients because they could not deal with it themselves. Thankfully, I have a bit of patience for my clients, so I can understand the frustration of Vincent.
Here is the WNBC link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY&eurl=
And go to CNN.com to see the video (they hide their links in Javascript)
And you can always go to the source, at http://insignificantthoughts.com/ Vincent Ferrari's Blog where it all began! Way to Go Vincent!

May 28th Arizona With the Parents

2006-06-23T10:01:00.000-04:00

May 28th Arizona With the Parents

Hi All, I am trying again to post some pictures, maybe this time I'll try without the table format:

This picture was taken by a great person who was passing us. We took a picture of them with their camera and they took a picture of all of us, Mom, Laura, Sasha, and Dad.

OK The pictures are starting to work properly, maybe I just can't get them to post as a table (whick looks nicer but as the fans are waiting, I got to get going on this!)
This is a picture of the Castle close up, using my zoom lens. Almost looks like a dollhouse - but those windows are the size of a small child.

This is a picture of the Site A - it is not in the castle but to the left of it. As you can see, it looks different, probably from a different time period or might have been a storage unit.

The people at this castle did have water nearby, but as you can see, the water level is low here.

OK It looks as though these pictures are going to come in, I will post and then put more pictures in soon.
My Parents at the Castle - I don't think Dad would have been able to fit in the rooms of the castle, he is 6'5" and the room heights were 5'6"!

We left the Castle to go to the Well, and on the way Sasha tried a different route, I guess he was hoping to do some off road with the truck that we rented. We did not get far but found a really cool area.
This is what the area on one side looked like. I thought this was a great picture as a horse with mailboxes is so like home.

This is the other side of the road, down a little gravel, sand and washboard road. We had absolutely no idea where we were but this is a dry river bed that people seem to use when it is wet.

Look at that tree! The roots are exposed but the tree still stands. Sasha went to see where this road goes and Dad was taking a picture of me and Mom, when a spider started crossing over my foot. I jumped and Dad got the shot. I know spiders are our friends but I don't want them on our feet.

I took this picture of Mom and Dad at the dry riverbed, I was not sure if it would come out, as it was extremely sunny and all. Sasha had not gotten back from his wanderings and it was starting to get hot out there.

After No Water, it was great to come to Montezuma's Well! Surrounding the well is dry land but you walk up a little hill and then you look over the edge, and you see this! There is a spring within the well which keeps the water going and there is a little diversion (see later pictures) that the Indians used for their farming.

Image living right above the Well! and I am sure that is what they did, as you can see this picture of the home above the well.

This is the opening to one of the cave houses.

Here we are on the path on the outside of the well and as you can see it is really dry but paved area so that people can walk all around the well area. And of course, beautiful blue skies.

Swallet: this is where the water comes out of the well so that the Indians could farm their land. I believe that it was natural, but that the Indians extended it on the other side to bring water to their crops.
And there is the other side coming out. This was one area that you had to be able to walk down quite a few steps. This is not the place to have a cane or walker.

Sasha is saying that this area is all his! Well, not really!

Here is Sasha, Mom and Dad at this enormous tree, this is the bottom part and this is the top. The tree is where the water was diverted.

Another picture of the well, as we were over on the other side.

This is a building on the top near the well. Some people say that this is where the workers lived while they were tending the fields.

Schnebly Hill Road: a great road that Pink Jeep Tours go on, and we drove on. Dad drove New Jersey Style - like a bat out of heck. So we took this picture of our clean car before we got on this road. This road has no guard rails and steep and sharp curves and turns. Plus there were a bunch of people on this road, all seem to be going the other way.

The windy Vista Point.
And interesting formations, this is just as good as Arches National Park or any other National Park or Monument. Beautiful even though it is hazy.

These formations I called mud pies because that is what they look like. Again, you can see that it is very hazy. The next couple of pictures are of us and the mud pies.

Mom is not that short, she was just on a lower ledge than me.
It was also a little cooler than we thought up there, so I had borrowed Mom's pullover and Sasha had his vest on. Also you can see the road that we are going on in the left part of the picture.

You can see the road down below and the beautiful sky above.

There was this great tree growing on the side of the mountain, and so the parents took this picture. As you can see, it is quite windy.

My Parents are not afraid of getting on high hills and rocks, so they got up there while Sasha and I stayed down here taking their picture.

I think that I will post the pictures that we took the following day in a new post, so that you don't have to scroll down each time to see them all.

After we went throught Schnebly Hill Road, we went into town to get some dinner and most of the restaurants had closed. I just don't understand it, as it is a holiday weekend, but the restaurants were closed by 9 pm! and this was a Saturday night that we tried to go out! Anyway, on Monday we made it a lazy day, staying by the pool and having a cookout using their grill. I introduced Mom to Safeway (a grocery store that we have in VA) and she just absolutly loved the store. So we got our provisions that we needed there, and had a cook-out that evening. See you soon in the next post.
Laura-n-Sasha.com

Trying to get the Arizona Pictures Up!

2006-06-21T18:06:00.000-04:00

Hi All,

I have been having the devil of a time trying to get pictures up, so I am trying again with a new post. We shall see!

OH MY GOD! It worked! The Blogger people are fabulous, I sent a question in and they replied within 24 hours, it looks as though it worked, YAHOO! Now you can go back to Arizona Pictures and see everything!

Actually, maybe that post with the Arizona Pictures is not working properly, so I am just going to post here instead.

Picture	Words
	We went to Montezuma's Castle outside of Sedona, an area of Indian ruins and Copper Mines.
	Montezuma's Castle description, so I don't have to write anything! Isn't National Parks and Monuments great! Everything is paved and easy to get to, I just love it.
Still having problems, it worked great at 7 am but now at 9 am it is not working. Just do not understand it.

Arizona Pictures!

2006-06-20T09:53:00.000-04:00

Arizona Pictures from May 27th through June 1st!

Hi All,

I just wanted to let you know that I have finished formatting the pictures to show everyone. You should scroll down to the post Arizona with the Parents - But No TrucK Camper there are quite a lot of pictures, but I do not have them all, because between my father and I, there were over 230 pictures taken. We both used Canon digital cameras. Mine is an older model with a resolution of 3 megapixels, while Dad's has four or five megapixels. But he was taking them at the same resolution as mine. So check it out and let us know what you think!

Actually, I'm going to try to set up the pictures here:

Picture	Words
	I took a walk in the morning to get us some "provisions" - creamer, diet dr pepper, and donuts.
	The View out the Car Window
	Rocks Above, traffic below
there are problems with this post, see above.

Laura-N-Sasha.com Website is now a blog

2006-06-17T19:55:00.000-04:00

Hi all,
I have now made the switch, from the 1and1.com website to the blogger website. One of the great things about the blogger website is the pictures; I no longer have to resize the pictures, you can see them in the correct size.

Some changes that you might see here: The guestbook is now new, over on the side, but you can see the old guestbook at the blogging site on the Guestbook page. Also the old pages are all here, you just need to go through the archives to see them. I will put links on the side that will show the pages. And lastly, I have ads, because, ultimately, making some money is always a good thing.

Thanks for looking and we will have the Sedona pictures up soon!
Laura-n-Sasha.com

Arizona With The Parents - No Camping This Time!

2006-06-16T09:52:00.000-04:00

Arizona With the Parents - But No Truck Camper

Sedona, Arizona in a Timeshare

Sasha and I decided that this would probably be our last plane ride for a while as we are giving up the credit card that accumulates points for flying and going to a credit card that offers cash back. We figure we take less than one flying trip a year for pleasure, and we really have no desire to go to places that need to be flown to, as we can take our truck camper to the sea and mountains and everywhere in between.

We had originally planned to take a sabbatical 3 month vacation for this year early in 2005 and had told my parents that we would be gone April through June 2006. So they though we might need a break from camping and might want to head over to Sedona, Arizona for a week. At that time, we thought OK. So they booked a timeshare in 2005 for a place in Sedona, Arizona, trading some of their time and vacation for a two bedroom, two bath suite at Los Abrigados Resort and Spa.

Well, we did not go on the sabbatical this year, or at least, not yet. We might go on a 5 week vacation, but as of yet, we are not sure. So, since my parents would have to pay serious money to get out of the vacation, we decided, hey let's go and check out Sedona, as neither Sasha or I had ever been there. What follows is a diary of sorts of the first day (Flying) and then the log of pictures. There are a couple of hundred of photos, as both my dad and I took them. I won't have duplicates but the area is so unbelievable, we had to get as many as we could. I will try to give descriptions where needed but most of the pictures speak for themselves. And they will go in order from the first day to the last day, so you might have to scroll down to see all. And if there is any picture you want to see in close up or in higher resolution, just click on the picture. Thanks for looking,

Laura-n-Sasha.com

Daily Log of Sedona Arizona with the parents

Day 1 Saturday May 27, 2006 from Sterling VA to Sedona, AZ

Getting ready and the airport ride

Sasha and I got ready for the airport ride to National Airport. We were going National because Midwest flew out of that one, not Dulles. Sasha had set up a pickup ride yesterday and we decided we needed to be picked up around 8:30am as we figured it would take about 1 hour in line at the airport and at least an hour in security. We had packed the day before so all we needed was to get up, shower, eat and lock everything.

We got a call around 8:15 from the driver who stated he was going to be a little late. But I had figured this might be the case, which is why I wanted an earlier time. He finally arrived closer to 9 am. We had forgotten about the 10K race here at Cascades and there were a lot of people running! Then the race to the airport began!

Our driver was not from around where we live, as he did not know how to get to the toll road from our house. So Sasha told him how to go. He also thought Potomac Mills was close to our house - totally wrong, but again, if you do not know the area, you might think it is close. So as we were driving down Route 7 on the way to the Dulles Toll Road, a light was beginning to change from Green to Red, and he gunned it however, the driver in front slowed, so he passed on the right and blasted his horn. At that point I put on the seat belt. (I was in the back and did not think it was necessary.) When we got to the Toll Road, he went through the toll gate (the area where you have the easy pass, and did not pay - I was a little shocked, as I pay for it each time. But Sasha stated that it has been in the news that the cameras at the toll booth (at least at that one) are fake and do not take pictures of non-paying vehicles. If that is the case, why should I have to pay? Here a corporation - does not pay - why should I; just because I am honest, I pay.

Anyway, we got to the airport at 9:30, Sasha gave him a tip and we went into the terminal, thinking at least we got here early enough, we could wait in a couple of lines. BUT as we walked into the terminal, it was practically empty. Only two other groups were ahead of us at the Midwest Check-In Counter! After the check out counter we went to security and again, no line! We took off our shoes, and went through security very quickly and got to the gate at 10am. What to do? I started switching the pictures and images from Laura-n-Sasha.com site from 1and1.com to Blogger, checked emails and Sasha read.

At 11:30 we got on the plane- Gorgeous seats - leather and wide with great head rests and lots of space. I read my book club book Beach House by James Patterson and Sash read Your Money or Your Life (see books we are reading). They handed out chocolate chip cookies, drinks and pretzels and I thought this is a good airline.

We got into the airport 10 minutes early (having left 5 minutes early) and then had to wait 3.5 hours for the next leg of the flight. Sash got us something to eat and he had his half at the airport, but I decided to wait as I was working well.

We got onto the next plane - boy, what a difference, I guess this is why we are not going to be flying anymore. The plane looked old, and the seats were not leather, nor very big. But we were still two across and the flight was not full. I had my lunch, they came around with snacks, drinks and cookies, and I read “The Beach House” by James Patterson. Actually finished the book, it was such a quick read. Don’t know what I will read on the way back.

We got to Phoenix early, so we got our bags and called up Mom & Dad and they came and picked us up (they were practically there as well.)

We drove to Sedona, getting gas on the way. Mom and Dad had driven down to Sedona when their plane had come in, because they wanted to know where we were staying and to get the room earlier. We are staying at Los Abrigados Resort and Spa - a hotel and timeshare place. It is right next to Tlaquepaque - shopping, restaurants and art galleries area that is all enclosed.

So we drove back down from Phoenix to Sedona and got to the place around 7:30 pm. We dropped off our bags and went over to Oak Creek Brewery and Grill to get something to eat. They make great beer at Oak Creek and the food was good but the people clearing the plates kept trying to take away our still full plates. It was very annoying. And the waitress was telling us about the deserts while I was still eating dinner. Very annoying! We did order a desert at the end, an apple crisp for us all. I just wish that restaurants would not rush people so much. After we left, we noticed that the place was closing.

OK Sedona PEOPLE - WHAT IS THE DEAL? We are noticing that restaurants are closed early and this is a holiday weekend. I mean we got out of that restaurant at maybe 9:30, I mean some people eat dinner that late. Later on, you will see our just missing the restaurants who close at 9pm in Sedona and I am truly amazed by this.

So we got back and set up the computer to do some blogging and found that the Verizon card did not work in the room. OH MY GOD what am I going to do? T-Mobile did not work either. My parents have Verizon phones which did not work in the suite, Sasha with Nextel works and my phone has full bars. This makes me unsure if I want to switch to Verizon, the ongoing saga.

We went to bed a little early (for us) in very comfortable rooms with great bathrooms and full “spa-like” bath accessories - shampoo, conditioner and moisturizer. Always like to see that.

Day 2 - May 28, 2006 Sedona - Montezuma Castle, Well, and Schnebly Hill Road!
I woke up around 4:30, still not used to the time difference, probably by the time I am ready it will be time to head back. Oh well, slept very well. Being in a timeshare is different than a hotel as they do not come to clean up everyday nor do they make the beds, or clean the baths (or replenish the toiletries) but it is nicer than a hotel as there is more room - we had our own bedroom and bath (as my parents got a two bedroom 2 bath suite) plus a family room (with dining table and chairs) patio and kitchen. So we had breakfast out as we had not gotten our “provisions” and ate at The Secret Garden in Tlaquepaque. - sidebar- since I got up so early, I read for a little and then took a walk up to a gas station and got creamer and a diet dr. pepper for myself. There were no sidewalks on the road that I was on, but there were not too many people on the road either. I took some pictures of the canyon as well. -End Sidebar -

The breakfast was very nice at the Secret Garden, Mom and Dad had ate there the day before and they really liked it. Then we went back the room and got ready to go out for the first full day of adventure. We had decided to go to Montezuma Castle and Well, two National Monuments. Very cool pictures to follow.

Sasha thought he had found a road we could go on that was a shortcut to Montezuma Well - but it really was not. Actually the road dead ended at a washed out dry creek. But we got some great pictures and had a cool adventure so it was worth it.

It is amazing to see the well as it is dry all around, but not there. And it is interesting to see how the people lived during that time, and how they diverted the water. While we were going down to see the diverted water, a bus tour came by and as we were heading down, they all were coming up. We could not believe how many came up the stairs at that time - I swear there must have been about 100 people down there. Check out pictures to see area.

One of the best adventures we had that day was going to Schnebly Hill Road. I had wanted to go there as it was written up in the guide books as being the best way to see the red rocks. So we went from I-17 into Sedona. The one side is pine trees and is nice and cool and at a higher elevation, the other side is red rocks and cactus, with lower elevation and warmer. Our car was clean before we went, but not afterwards. Mom is definitely not afraid of scampering on the rocks, but Dad and I are a little afraid of heights. However, really cool picture of parents on the rocks. Sasha and I had great pictures too. (Pictures coming soon!)

No FTP but Yes to Guestbook

2006-06-15T20:04:00.000-04:00

New Guestbook for All to Use!

Yahoo! I found a site that does Guestbooks for free! www.UltraGuest.com is a great site, allows you to have a guest book with smiles and it links back to your site. What is really good is that it is free. So those that like to use the NEW and improved Guestbook, go ahead. Ultimately, the Laura-n-Sasha.com site will become this blogging site, I just have to make sure that everything is off of it and on the blogger site instead. Thanks for looking and I am doing the jig around the room, I'm so happy I found a great Guestbook!

Tried FTPing and did not work

2006-06-13T18:33:00.000-04:00

Hi ALL,
I was trying out the posting as an FTP but it did not work. I want to have my Laura-n-Sasha.com domain but I like using the posts editor. I will have to figure something out. I really like having the pictures within Blogger, but want the domain to be Laura-n-Sasha.com, well I'll try again later.

Guest Book of Laura-n-Sasha.com

2006-06-13T10:43:00.000-04:00

Old Guest Book of Laura-n-Sasha.com

I am trying to change the Laura-n-Sasha.com website over to the blogger.com website, and one of the biggest parts of our website was the Guestbook. I will try to put a guest book on the blogging site, we will see if that can be done. But I wanted to keep the entries that we had, so I have compiled them into this post. There are over 70, just scroll down to see them all. Thanks.

JR 05/23/2006 21:55 h
Laura, Found your website on rv.net. What interested me was your trip in June to Sedona. We are going from AL to Grand Canyon starting June 15. We will stop in Sedona around 20th. When will you be there? Looking forward to see where to go. Thanks Jimmy (Laura - note -I will have the Sedona pictures up soon - I promise!)

Leigh Callaway website 04/28/2006 06:46 h
Perhaps we'll meet up at Ocracoke in the fall. Enjoyed the site, will check back later for Tall Pines updates. llc

eva Jevtic' 04/27/2006 06:41 h

Bravo Sasha and Laura We are proud of you, continue and send us lot of pictures. We love to know what you are doing.your oncle Slobo and your aunt Eva

Danielle Miles 04/27/2006 02:07 h

Hey Guys, Thanks for the update. You guys are quite inspirational, doing what most people only dream of. My hats off to you for always doing new things and having the courage to follow your dreams. Enjoy the journey and keep us posted, the kids love to see and hear about your continuing adventures.... Hugs xo

jimmy johnson 04/25/2006 15:58 h

it was nice to meet you guys at tall pines hope to see ya guy again thanks for a ll nice pics also

John and Ruth Sturm 04/25/2006 15:54 h

Enjoyed the weekend with y'all. Look forward to our next adventure with the Mid-Atlantic TCing group. If you're in the Greensboro, NC area give us a call.

michelle humphress 04/25/2006 08:57 h

hey. ron told me to check out your website to see about tall pines. thanks for taking all the pics. your website is really cool - it is neat how you track everything and share with everyone. gosh, we never got a picture of ron and i but that's o.k. thanks for the pics of jarrett. hope to see you guys again! take care.

Matt Engle 04/24/200608:23 h

High guys its Camper addict (the guy with the host). Just wanted to say hello, and check out your website. For some reason I just can't seem to focus on work this morning.

George Edwards 04/19/2006 13:31 h

I think it's great you are having so much fun. My wife and I are slowly getting used to not having a tent ... lol - sure is fun to go ... then stop when you feel the urge. Congratulations and thanks for sharing your experiences. George

Paul and Pam Kajtna 04/10/2006 15:42 h

Your website is in our favorites, because we learned so much from your experiences. We recently joined Natcoa, to learn as much as possible before purchasing a Ford or Dodge truck and truck camper. We will be at the Natcoa Nebraska rally at Ogallala, NE in June. If you get asked this question alot, forgive me. Are you members of Natcoa, you know http://www.natcoa.com? We have a '02 Dodge white cargo van. Thank you, Paul (Laura's Note - We are not members yet, maybe someday! :)

jim and nancy 02/17/2006 16:20 h

enjoyed your pic and adv....do you like your snowriver? how much does it weigh? what would you get different in that size...thanks jim (Laura Note - Yes we like our Snowriver, I'll have to find out how much it weighs, and I'm not sure what we would get different in that size...I'll ask Sasha to give more complete answers)

Yvonne Batal 01/18/2006 17:31 h

Great pictures of the new bike!!!! Congrats!!! Love y

Mom C 01/15/2006 22:46 h

Hi Laura & Sasha- Just read about your new trip to Atlanta. Its great! I can't wait to see pictures-sure would have liked to see Sasha pushed up the hill on the bike! I hope you don't have to push it to start it every time. Love you guys! Mom

Kjell Ingebrigtsen 01/04/2006 13:03 h

Is this The Sasha that I worked with in Colorado and attended my wedding in Vermont? (Laura's Note - When Sasha read that one - his mind just blew - as Kjell was referring to his wedding over 20 years ago, it is amazing what the web can do.)

Dick 12/05/2005 23:44 h

Happend on to your travellog from a RV.net e-mail. Website is well constructed and thought out. Have traveled to many of the areas in Co. that you visited but not as brave as you two explorers, in that we always try to travel in the spring/summer months. Living on the west coast makes for prima donna type travelers as far as snow and cold weather. No Brrrrrrrrrr for this kid. My truck sees snow and automatically goes into reverse :) Great looking camper. We have a 8' Lance and a 32' Holiday Rambler TT. Enjoy your new toy and see you on the road some day.

Bruce Browning 12/02/2005 18:21 h

Smiles Laura and Sasha :))Your site made my day. Ti's so nice to see others that enjoy life . I am from Elliot Lake 12,000 souls in On. Canada. We are above the north shores of lake Huron. I am " 92 chevy " a retired paramedic with 850 matching Jayco. staying where ever the fish bite Thanks again for puting nice thoughts in me head !

Tim 09/27/2005 01:59 h

Great website! My wife and I have purchased a rig much like yours and used it the first time over the long labor day weekend. Next summer will be our chance to really travel. I can hardly wait and hope our excursions turn out as well as yours. I know this is off beat but I always bother folks who have gone the Truck/Camper RV route. Have you ever read Travels With Charley? It is a book by John Steinbeck written in the early sixties that logs his trip across America w/ his dog. What is cool is he traveled in an early version of our rigs, a truck and camper combo. I think it is a good read if you are into Truck Campers. Happy travels, Tim (Laura's Note: We have not yet read Travels with Charley but hope to soon - check our reading list later as it will be changing)

Sean O 08/25/2005 22:20 h

Hi there, awesome photos and site. I'm still in the dreaming stage of going cross country (have truck, 5er will come a lil later this year). Those mountain pictures are amazing, inspiring. Thanks for posting all of this. Sean Ottawa, Canada

Sasha 08/15/2005 15:28 h

Don't sweat it Dan. We turn off the airbag when using the laptop.

Dan Riggs 08/09/2005 18:18 h

Beautiful truck and camper. I noticed in one of your pics, you show Laura sitting in the passenger seat with a mobile PC mount in between her and the airbag. PLEASE don't do this while driving! The damage from being hit by the PC when the airbag goes off would be devastating. Enjoy your RV and be safe.

Brent Berger his website 06/12/2005 10:44 h

Great site! Very creative. It really shows how much fun you two are having. Good to see you @ InfoComm. bb

Larry Space 05/21/2005 10:47 h

Hi, We are interested in a SR truck camper. We are in VT and there are no dealers. Would it be possible for us to come to Virginia to see yours. We are exactly where you were, NL first interest because of weight. I talked to 5 Star and they seem like good people. Larry (Laura's Note - I believe they did come down and see it)

Kenny Miller 05/10/2005 06:38 h

Laura and Sasha - AWESOME TRUCK, RV AND TRIP. It's good to know that Sasha hasn't changed on bit. See you on the 4th. KM

Waynette 05/06/2005 22:33 h

Am enjoying your homepage. We have just retired and have pretty much made up our mind that we want to buy a Snowriver Camper. Like to travel, camp, and fish with family members. Just returned from a trip to Colorado visiting our daughter and her family. First week of April and beautiful weather.If you get to Oregon we can give lots of help visiting Oregon as have lived here all my life (64 years)

Darlene Kiss 04/26/2005 16:25 h

Just got this e-mail because I had to clear out my juno account. Don't forget to e-mail me deeand68@optonline.net. What a great house on wheels. Just perfect for two people on the go. I saw your mom recently at work. My dad and I went up to visit some old friends. Darlene

Jevtic' Slobodan and Eva 04/17/2005 14:36 h

We are very happy to see how you know to make lovely and stunning treps. We are very proud of you enjoy and send us more.Big kisses from the Jevtici of france.

Marty and Jill McGarry and kids 04/16/2005 18:12 h

Laura and Sasha, it was great to see you guys, and thanks for the tour of your second home (the camper). I am enjoying reading about your excellent adventure and wish you both many more fantastic journeys!

Shari and Preston 04/16/2005 09:20 h

I enjoyed reading about your experience with your new TC. We hope to do the same thing soon, or sometime. I was wondering why you didn't need the Wifi in your laptop, since you used it for Flying J Wifi. BTW, we have slept overnight at that one west of St.Louis also. Your truck looks great, with camper it is awesome! Shari (Laura's Note - I have WiFi in my Laptop but it is set to my home system, and I did not want to mess it up so I used the WiFi system of the T-Mobile card instead...At least I think that is what I did!)

Christine 04/15/2005 19:45 h

Thanks for your link from RV.net. It was a great trip and I enjoyed your first experiences with your new TC and truck. Someday soon, I hope we can get ours.

Barry and Emily Winslow 04/15/2005 12:50 h

Hi! What a great trip. I can relate as my wife and I made the trip form N.C. to Five Star to pick up our SnowRiver. The Colorado mountains were magnificent and are pulling at us to come back. We found the mountains to be as spectacular as the Grand Canyon to be. Hope you are enjoying your SR as much as we are, We have not been disapointed in our SR and would do it all over again. Thanks for the logs and great pictures Take care, Barry

Dan Richter (Rickson Truck Wheels) 04/13/2005 18:59 h

Great site! I'm imoressed that you put this together so quickly.

Mike Brennan 04/13/2005 15:58 h

S&L,What a fabulous roadtrip. I enjoyed the e-tour and cruisin' thru the pics. Now I'm anxious to get the fam on a Colorado trip...nice truck and camper rig too!! Thx for thinking of me. All my best.

Gary Arsenault 04/13/200512:12 h

Hi Great photo look's like you had fun!! Colorado is a great state. I hope the Rickson wheels and tires worked out for you, I like mine. Gary Baltimore, MD.

Andy Orr his website 04/13/2005 08:37 h

Hi! I saw your guestbook entry in the Colorado National Monument's Monument Canyon overlook trail and wrote your web page address down so I could visit your site. It's great that you have this website here. I love reading about other people's travels. You're so fortunate to be able to travel around like you do. I am getting a degree in Geology at our local college in Grand Junction, so if you had any geology questions that you didn't get answered feel free to email me and I'll help you find an answer. Take care, and have fun hiking! I love the hiking here in Grand Junction! (Laura's Note - First, we have started to put in guest books our website so people can see what we saw. Second, I have a degree in Geology - but I have not used it in over seven years as I started my new career in Software Training and Website Design. But some things you don't forget, other things just fade away. So we might just take him up on the offer later on.)

Dave Zimmerman his website 04/12/2005 07:54 h

Nice to see the travelogue. Keep it up and keep us posted. (Snowriver 9.6)

Bob Mehrer Snowriver Campers 04/11/2005 21:18 h

Love the pictures, love more the fact you are happy with your camper. Will check back from time to time. Any concerns questions call me. Welcome to our family. Snowriver Bob

Rob Clark 04/11/2005 15:50 h

Cool adventure guys. Take me with you next time; I think my wife will let me out!

Mom C. 04/11/2005 13:35 h

Welcome home! glad you are back safely and happily, though it will be disappointing not to have any travel log to read! When is the next trip?

Bo 04/09/2005 23:15 h

"SASH AND LAURA'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE" RAD!

Mom C. 04/09/200522:33 h

Boy, have I enjoyed your trip. Glad to hear Sasha is sappy. Does that translate to happy and sentimental? You're right, we were afraid you'd kill each other. Well, your sister was afraid. I did worry a little. love you!

Mark Moyer 04/09/200508:06 h

Sasha and Laura,It looks like you had a great time on your adventure. The camper looks great. I hope you have many great years with it. I wish my family was into camping. I love the great outdoors and I think you two have found the perfect way to enjoy it. The pictures of Colorado were wonderful. Thanks for sharing your trip with everyone. Mark

M & T 04/09/2005 01:01 h

Thank you for great repotage of your CO and C the Camper trip. Have safe journey to your home. Can't wait to see you here T & M

Mike Morbeto from AVWashington 04/08/2005 21:22 h

You guys are too much! Only Deb and I would be more concerned about how many bars we had for internet. Wait, since we'd both need our laptops, we'd probably have convinced ourselves we needed the high-speed wireless to share the bandwidth. Oh, and I'd need the gyroscopic DirecTV dish! Glad you're having fun!

Bill Apter 04/08/2005 19:36 h

What a wonderful way to share your journey! I image it was quite a bit of work to assemble/sort the photos and then get everything up to the web-site. But hey - after traversing the wonders of nature all day it probably feels good to get back to manipulating electrons. Your camper looks like it was a fine travel companion. Enjoy!!

Bo Buck his website 04/08/200514:57 h

Saw your fine ride as you were cruising East through the Glenwood Canyon just East of Glenwood Springs (4/7/05). Looks like you are having a wonderful trip. My wife, Cindy, our 2 kids Dillon and Mackenzie and I also love to travel to all of the National Parks. Thought that you two might be interested in a business opportunity that you could benefit from while on your many travels. We help people who are compassionate to work with others and educate them on how to take resposibility for their personal Health and Wellness. I put our website above under "Homepage". If you like what you see and are interested in learing more, e-mail me back and I can send you to an audio -education site on this wonderful business. Safe travels and all the best. Take care and Cheers, Bo Buck (Laura's Note - Thanks but I think with the two of us doing our jobs is more than enough for us to handle!)

M & T 04/06/2005 23:51 h

Thanks again for facinating pics from trai 4.4th. Today was you full day at the park. What we undestend tomorrow you are paking and on way to home. Thanks again, not just waching your pics, but also entertainment like hering your taughts and voice while reading detailed daily log. That was great experience for us as well. Have save and easy trip home. we love you. T & M

M & T 04/06/2005 00:48 h

Dear Laura And Sash. Love pics from Monument Park. You look like real pro, but not alpine style, but certainly Indiana Jones.I use to do that with couple frends across 4 montains souronding my home town, but on foot for about 75 mils. Love T

Ann Baker 04/05/200514:35 h

Wow, this is great. I'm ready for an adventure. Do you have room for 2 more adults and 2 very busy girls inside that camper? OK maybee just outside the camper in our own tent. I didn't read your log but was it as hard as Mt St Helens. Did you puke at the top like John Mittaure? (Laura's Note: The Mighty Hike was as hard as the Mt. St. Helens hike but we did not get sick, I think we were just very tired and dehydrated!)

Laura the Webmistress 04/05/2005 01:19 h

Hi all, Bo had a weather report in here that I took out. It was scaring the parents. We are not experiencing any weather conditions as we are in Grand Junction, mostly sunny and 60's. We went through a small patch of windy weather, but that was it. So no snow here. April 4th was a winery day so we will give you the scope of April 5th about that. Tomorrow we are going hiking again - only 7 miles this time and hopefully all downhill. Thanks for looking, Laura

M & T 04/04/2005 23:52 h

Hi, Wish we got to pics earler, but its never late. Fantastic experience, you are brave indeed and having lots of fun. Looks you will graduate in wilderness hiking there, and when you retutn you may lecture at George Masson University. Bravo again. Love, M & T

T& M 04/04/2005 23:39 h

L & S,We think you are very courageous and little crazy.Pics are great and scenary fantastic, like it is not on the earth. Love you "hotel" it is GREAT.Please take , hope you have had enough excitement and adventure to last til next year. Love Mama & Tata

Mom C. 04/04/2005 21:04 h

Dear Laura & SashaHope you are under construction and not under snow-just read Bo's forcast. We miss our update-maybe too much wine!Hope you aren't in blizzard!

Mom C. 04/04/2005 20:58 h

Dear Laura & Sasha: Okay, you had a lounge day at camp and went to bed happy (Apr 2) (after a bottle of wine). Is that why there is nothing for 2 days? We need our adventure fix!

T. MITZA & T. FAY 04/03/2005 20:56 h

HOW EMPOWERING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR ADVENTURE MUST BE. WE ADMIRE YOU AND FEEL, VICARIOUSLY, THE THRILL.

Richard Marshall his website 04/02/2005 13:58 h

Sasha & Laura, Grand adventure! Sasha, I am the person from Louisa, VA who communicated with you earlier (via RV.NET) re. Snowriver, truck, mobile internet access, etc. We have truck and camper (Lance 1181 - got tired of doing research) on order. So far, all we have for our rig are a few things from Camping World in Manassas (for the camper) and a Fumoto drain valve (for the truck). Thus, we are inspired by your tale. Do not know how you plan to return home to Sterling, but offer you a free overnight spot if you come this way. I hope the balance of your maiden voyage is as wonderful as the first part sounds. Best Wishes, Richard

Bob McMillian 04/02/2005 11:27 h

What an inspiration you are......

Patrick and Lynn 04/02/2005 11:26 h

You go guys.....

Stephen Miles and Family 04/02/2005 11:23 h

What an adventure.... Sounds like fun. Keep us posted on your progress. The kids love it too. Stay safe!

UNCLE JOE & AUNT TINA 04/02/2005 08:09 h

WE LOVED YOUR PICTURES. SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY EXCITING VACATION. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY IT COMPLETELY.LAURA---WE ARE VERY IMPRESSED WITH YOUR SETUP ON YOUR WEBPAGE. VERY SNEEKY TO DO SOME ADVERTISING ALSO. WE'LL BE CHECKING YOUR WEBSITE. ENJOY!!!

Karen 04/01/2005 21:03 h

Hi Guys, We are enjoying reading about your trip and looking at the pictures! Karen and James

Eric and Faith 04/01/2005 10:49 h

Looks great guys. Keep posting the pictures and don't forget to check the 110psi nightly....Good luck!

Jevtic' Slobodan and Eva 03/31/2005 16:29 h

We are very pride of you.continue you are in the good way.with love.Slobo and Eva

Mary Beth 03/31/2005 15:44 h

Sounds really fun! Good luck you two!!! If you're going back through KY or OH, let me know and we can rendezvous. Love, Mary Beth

Bruce Pittman 03/31/2005 14:18 h

Totally awsome dude!!

Mary Beth 03/31/2005 12:52 h

Hope you guys are having a great time! We are back from SC and getting back into the routine. Nothing new in the neighborhood! Mary Beth

ROOT FAMILY 03/31/2005 10:35 h

LOVE YOUR SITE AND WILL FOLLOW THE ADVENTURE EAGERLY. T. FAY

Mom 03/31/2005 08:42 h

Fabulous! This is so great - I feel as if I'm with you vicariously. Can't wait to read it every day-you guys are wonderful-love you! Mom

Yvonne and John Batal 03/31/2005 05:50 h

We love your site!! It sounds as though you are havibg a ball!! We just returned from Spring break with the kids. We sailed the BVI's w/ another family!! Awesome trip!! We'll exchange photos when you get back. Have fun!! Yvonne John and the gang!

Amy 03/31/2005 01:20 h

What a great site! It seems like you are having a lot of fun. Enjoy your travels!

Kristina Tascher 03/30/2005 22:41 h

Happy to hear you are well. We are retrieving your mail daily and wish you safe travels. Kristina, Jack, Mikey & Mike

Karen 03/30/200521:22 h

Hi Guys! We are enjoying your log. Where are the pictures? (Laura's note - the first time I did the posting, it was taking quite a while to get the pictures up as I had to resize them to a more managable size and then put them on the website. We were not getting the fastest speeds so it took a while in the beginning.)

laura 03/27/200519:46 h

just thought we would see how this looks!

Log of Trip to Colorado to Get Camper

2006-06-10T09:17:00.000-04:00

Log of Trip to Colorado to Get Camper

March 27th through April 10th, 2005

Ok, I know what you are thinking, didn't I just read about this before? Well, yes, but I wanted to try out the links and other stuff that bloggers do plus give you some abbreviations and vocabulary that I used within the Log of the Trip to Colorado.

First the Links and Log Info:

Hi all, we are going on a most excellent adventure: where we are picking up our Snowriver camper, something that we can put on our Ford SuperDuty F-350 truck. We have all ready packed and are now on the road to get the camper.

Please check back often, as we plan (we will see of course) to: upload pictures and travel log.
Actually, we now have a couple pages of pictures: Getting There, Getting Camper, Staying at a Walmart, From a Walmart to Colorado, From Cold to a Desert, Visiting Colorado, Lounge Day, The Mighty Hike, the Wineries, the Downhill Hike (in Monument Canyon), the signage day, our relaxation day and more. The Daily Logs: are now within the pages above, except for traveling days.

Started out writing this on the home page, but it got too long, that was why we made individual pages. But here is the first log that I did-on March 27, 2005:

By the way, trying to write this while on Ohio roads - they are so bumpy!
I am no longer in Ohio, or Kansas anymore, but in Colorado where it is 17 F with the wind blowing the snow off of our camper. There are more pictures to be seen, I have changed the format a little so that the pictures and pages of text are together.

Now we are in Fruita, Colorado, just outside of Grand Junction where it is going for a high of 60 F and blue skies!

Today, April 2nd is also blue skies and warmer still.

April 3rd was the day of the Mighty Hike. Please check on the pictures to see why it is so mighty.

April 4th was winery day -we went to six wineries and did no hiking until the next day.

April 5th was another hike day, this time back to Colorado National Monument on the Monument Canyon Trail, a 7 mile downhill trail with beautiful vistas, geology, and biology. The log is on the same page as the pictures, as keeping up a log has seriously cut into our vacation time. We also met with our camper neighbors - Larry and Kathy and spent some time with them that evening. They are such an interesting couple and the information they gave us will help every time we travel with the camper. They have been traveling with the a trailing camper (they actually live in it full time and move when the job moves them) for several years now.

April 6th was a relax, put signage on the camper, and clean up day.

April 7th, we drove back from the Grand Junction area via I-70 thru some amazing scenery and stopped in the Denver area at Five Star RV to have them take care of a couple of punch list items on the camper. We feel that 5 Star really took care of us and would recommend them without hesitation should you be in the market for a camper or similar RV. Once the gang at 5 Star did their magic, we were back on the road.

Now on 1-70 eastbound on the high, flat Colorado-Kansas plains, it was very windy here. We are having problems going more than 65 miles an hour because we are fighting against the powerful southerly cross-wind. We have been using the on-board trip computer in the truck to plan refueling stops and today, for the first time, it let us down. The strong cross-winds fooled the computer, something the driver should of anticipated. At least it happened during the day. We still had enough diesel to make it up an exit ramp. I parked the truck off the side with Laura in it. We were 8 miles short from the planned truck stop. 2 guys heading to a Bass tournament gave me a ride east. Once there, I found Tim the parts guy who just happened to be heading west to Denver to pick up truck parts. We filled a jerry can with diesel and went back west to Laura and the truck. Tim the good samaritan asked for nothing, but got a healthy tip from the grateful travellers. Lesson learned- cross-winds effect mileage!! We didn't make it to our planned stop that night and stayed in Hayes, KS that night in a Wal Mart parking lot.

April 8th we are again on our way home. We hopefully will get moving again, but I was able to upload the rest of the pictures of the last hike and signage at Flying J truck stop because - get this - they have a high speed internet hot spot. And it is fast!

On April 8th we went from Hayes, KS to the western outskirts of St. Louis, MO. We stayed that evening in a Flying J parking lot. I know this is really not camping but, boy is it nice. Hi-speed internet access and a safe environment, plus a good restaurant when you wake up.

On April 9th we plan to go through St. Louis and try to get as close to home as possible. But we plan to take a slightly different route, going through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia on Interstate 64 to Interstate 79.

Sasha has been very sappy lately, I believe we have found a great way to travel and have become closer because of it. He believes that the camper is good for our marriage. I believe that our parents thought we would kill each other by trip's end, but I think that it really brought us closer together - in many ways. All in all, a very good trip. We will update this website when we get back too, as there are more things that Sasha wanted to add, and I will just have to teach him how to use it.

April 10th our last day: again we stayed at a Flying J last night, driving in at 1 am. We are so close to the West Virginia border, but still in Kentucky.

We are now back home and back to work, but we plan to get other things into the website in the next couple of weeks. See you soon, as we go one the road again.

Second, the Vocabulary:

Bars or Internet Bars: I have a T-Mobile Sony Ericson card that I got - it allows me to get onto the internet anywhere as long as there is a phone tower. It uses the same speeds as dial-up, up to 56 kb. So the more bars, the faster the internet connection, no bars or red bar means I might lose internet connection. This purchase was a great deal as it is $30 a month, which has more than paid for itself last month when I was in NY and they were asking $10 a day for internet service! I stayed 5 days!

ASL: = Above Sea Level. Sasha and I, being from Washington, DC area, have not been much above sea level and now with our GPS (discussed below), we can tell what elevation we are at at any time. I like to log it so that we can tell how high in the sky we are at a moment's notice.

GPS: = Global Positioning System. Sasha bought the Delorne Topo Mapping software and we installed it on my computer. It came with a little device that allows us to beam to a satellite so that we can see where we are on the map. It is great for getting directions and keeping a log as to where we are and how to get to somewhere else.

Temp or F: I like to record the Temperature when we go places, so that you can understand how cold or warm it is. Remember, we are CAMPING, it is just a little better than being in a tent, so if it is cold, we might be a little cold too. As we get better at gauging how much propane is in our tanks, we won't have to feel cold.

Travel Days, Coming Back East

2006-06-10T09:11:00.000-04:00

Travel Days - Coming Back to the East

April 7-10, 2005

It is actually taking us several days to come back, partly because of high winds in Kansas and partly because you can not really go much over 70 mph in the truck with a camper. It might also be because we keep stopping at Flying Js to gas up, get food, and the last couple days, sleep.

On April 7th we were raring to go home, thinking it would take three days to get back since we had to go to Five Star RV Center first, and get the checkup and get some other questions answered about the camper. We ran into high winds in eastern Colorado and Kansas, and only made it as far as Hayes, Kansas because of those winds. We stayed in a Wal-Mart and for the first time, took showers in the camper. The showers were heavenly, and we went to bed refreshed even though we were unhappy about the slow process.

On April 8th, we got up slowly, made breakfast, and got on the road around 11 am. I know, what slowpokes, getting up so late and not getting on the road until that time. But again, we hit major winds, and smokey skies. It seems Kansas farmers burn their lands to keep them fertile, but the smell is horrible for those not used to it. Stopped at Salina, Kansas, which is just up the road a piece, and went to a Flying J to upload the rest of the pictures and work on the website. The real reason we did that was because the winds were highest during the day, and we waited until evening to drive. But we had a loooong lunch and surfed and read until 6 pm, when the dinner crowd was coming in. We then got on the road and stopped at a Flying J west of St. Louis. They were packed (Friday night and all) but we managed to squeeze in and get a spot.

On April 9th, we again did not get up until 9 am and got on the road around 12 noon. This time there was no wind, and we stopped in St Louis to see the Arch. The city was not much to look at but maybe we came in from the wrong side or something, but it was dirty and downtrodden were we saw it. We did not even get up fully to the Arch but took pictures on the way. We thought that where we were parked, someone might break in and steal or that they would tow away the truck. We got back on the road, this time going on Interstate 64 and the signs, well, they were not very good.

Meanwhile, my cell phone had stopped service; it kept saying No Service. This had started in Kansas City and we thought that maybe Cingular was not in that area, but when I looked at my phone today, in St Louis and it was not working, let's just say that I was frustrated. So I called them up, (because Sasha's phone was working as well at the internet) and got disconnected 3 times before I finally got someone who told me that my phone was too old to work on - but they tried to ping it several times to get the service back. The last time we got disconnected, I looked at my phone and the service was back on. It states that it is on ROAM, but it works and I can get messages, but it looks like I will be getting a new phone in a couple of days. I have had that phone about 5 years, having gotten a new phone about 2 years ago, and then it petered out within a couple of months. So I switched back to the old phone - but I guess it is time to change. You would think as a technology person, this would not be a problem, but I like to stick to what I got, for as long as possible.

So here we are, back at a Flying J again, this time in Haubstadt, Indiana (just over the border into Indiana, where Sasha emptied the black tank, the gray tank and filled us back up with clean water. He filled up the tires with air (he said that that part went very fast - was able to get 120 psi like we are supposed to have) and we had taken snoozes and ate. I worked on the website and Sasha read his book. I will be driving the camper for the first time this evening. We will let you all know tomorrow if we have crashed.

April 10th - well, we did not crash, but I drove until my eyelids were droopy, around 1 am. Again we stayed at a Flying J, this time in Ashland, Kentucky. We stayed here overnight and had breakfast the next morning. We had taken showers the night before, it is so nice to wash the grit off of you face in your own bathroom. We will be coming home today as we both are working tomorrow. With high speed internet access, these flying Js are great. I can check my email, work on the website and download everything.

Hope you all have enjoyed the log and we'll be back soon to update the rest. But I am hungry now and we have to go soon, we'd like to get home before nightfall. (Well, that did not happen, we got back around 8 pm, with some time to unpack and watch a show before going to bed.) Oh, well.

Day 11 - April 6 - Signage Day

2006-06-10T08:57:00.000-04:00

Signage Day

April 6, 2005

Hi all - yes we know, having signage on our camper seems a little kooky but since we made up this website, we thought it would be great to have something else for people to look at before they pass us on the road. We went to Angel Sign Company and had someone come out on April 6th, our relaxation day before we came home. Here are a couple of the pictures before and after:

This is the back of our camper before the signage. As you can see, the Snowriver camper logo is in the middle of the area that we need to work. The bottom of the camper is where we are going to put the website, as that is where people can see it easiest.

As you can see, he is almost done with the signage, he used vinyl

which is the same material as the

Snowriver camper logo material and looks almost the same, so it will take a long time before it starts to peel off.

Our excellent adventure is almost at an end, but this log on the website will live for a while, until the next adventure.

I just wanted to mention that after we got the sign on, we washed up and had a nice rest of the day - because the next day was a travel day. After the sign was done, we got the camper BACK on the truck, with a little bit of back and forth driving to get it perfect, but no real arguing and no hitting the truck with the camper (or visa versa). We managed to clean up everything that evening and still play a game of Life before going to bed.

Day 10 - April 5 The Downhill Hike

2006-06-10T06:59:00.000-04:00

The Downhill Hike
April 5, 2005

April 5th, the day of the Downhill Hike - at Colorado National Monument on the Monument Canyon Trail

-Sidebar-This post will have some lots of pictures -this place was fabulous and if I could have, I would put pictures everywhere, BUT it would probably take forever to load. So please be patient, and I have put the best pictures in. - End Sidebar -

This is the day of another big hike; Sasha had talked to one of the campground managers regarding getting a lift to the top trailhead, so that we would be going downhill the entire way for this hike. He agreed to do it which was nice, as we had tried a couple of other commercial places and they would not do it. I guess it is too early in the season for them to be carting people to the top of trailheads. So Sasha got him to do it.

We started early - he had asked us to meet him at his trailer at 8 am. We had a hearty breakfast of oatmeal with all the fixings. We then started off, he in his truck following us to the bottom of the trail where we would deposit our truck and then got into his truck.

Side note-we forgot our walking sticks and remembered them half way up, but at that point we did not think we would need them, I’ll discuss why later.)

He drove us to the top, where the trailhead was and stated that if he did not see us by 5 pm that evening, he’d get the park service out to check up on us. Very nice gesture on his part, we thought.

We took over 75 pictures this day and will try to post the highlights here. There were so many vistas and views to take in so that we could make even an attempt to display what we were seeing. All of the pictures shown were taken on April 5th.

This was an awesome hike and probably the highlight of our vacation!! Words cannot really describe what a beautiful place this is. We started out by talking our Campground Manager into shuttling us to the top. We dropped our truck off at the bottom trail head and Dan kindly drove us to the top and dropped us off. This wasn't too much trouble from him as the Campground was just down the road from the park and convieniently situated to both trail heads. The picture here was taken by Dan when he dropped us off at the top of the trail, just before leaving us to ourselves in this very uncrowded jewel of a park.

Here is Sasha maybe a 1/4 mile down from the summit. The trail splits off for a short dog leg (small walk) to the Coke Ovens overlook, which we of course took.

Sasha standing at the Coke Ovens overlook. The opposing rock formation has about a 600' vertical sheer face. Straight down. You can see the last switchback at the bottom left of the wall. It is amazing that a trail was even built in this place. Furthermore, compared to the trail in Rattlesnake Canyon, this trail was extremely well maintained and marked, making for some really fun hiking. The decent here is very similar to the Bright Angel trail coming off the top of the Grand Canyon.

Laura at the same trail junction just off the top trail head, after we returned from the Coke Ovens.

Picture	Words
	Going down the switchbacks, getting warmer. I took off my vest.
	Laura descending
	Profile view of Coke Ovens with overlook at top right. That area is the ending point of the dog leg trail.
	View from the trail via wide angle lens.
	Laura again. The Monument Canyon Trail comes directly down the area over Laura's left shoulder, although the switchbacks aren't too visible. The road can be made out in the top left.
	Coke Ovens via telephoto. Observation area gate can be seen on top right.
	Laura and Coke Ovens.
	Sasha at a mud flow.
	Laura at cairn at bottom of switch backs. We are now in a different enviromental zone.
	View of valley below.
	Amazing! But we can't remember which view this is - I think Cleopatra's Couch but I'm not sure. Each time you look up at these rocks you need to make sure to steady yourself, otherwise you would fall over backwards. All the rocks are so tall and you feel so small in comparison. Great for those on a diet.
	Valley View
	Cool Cactus!
	We come up to the rocks and can walk right underneath their beauty.
	Laura underneath the Monument
	This monument is called the Kissing Couple. And you can see the Independence Monument in the distance. We are going to get there soon.
	The Independence Monument in the distance
	Laura and Sasha with the Kissing Couple to the right. We ran into another pair of hikers that day, Rob and Attila. Rob was kind enough to take our photo.
	Close up of kissing couple
	Sasha and I keep seeing "the Monument" but haven't quite gotten there.
	closer again
	These were the two guys we met on the trail. That one picture (above) has both Sasha and I at the Kissing Couple, well, either Rob or Attila took that for us. It was nice to have company on the trail, as there was NO ONE else there.
	This was the view as we were leaving. Rob and Attila went back.
	just wanted to show you all the trail, hopefully you can see that blue arrow and the word TRAIL. That was were we walked. Right underneath the monuments.
	Sasha with the Frog. A couple of rocks had fallen from above and someone was cute enough to put these rocks to make a face.
	You can see the monuments to the upper right of the picture. That is how far we walked (but only shows half of the journey.)
	There was this guard rail so that big rocks and other stuff would not go into the valley below. This really was not the true bottom, we had to go along a fence and expensive homes first and then we landed at the parking lot.

This hike took us about 6 hours but that was with picture taking and talking to Rob and Attila on the trail as well as just enjoying the trip. We had enough water this time around and could really enjoy the scenery more than the other trail. We went back to the campground immediately so that we could wash up and enjoy the evening.

Check out the Signage that we did to the truck and about our evening with Larry and Kathy, our next camper neighbors at the campground with the next post.

Day 9 - April 4 Going to the Wineries & Signage

2006-06-02T11:28:00.000-04:00

Wineries and Signage

April 4, 2005

We woke up early today and found that we were very sore from yesterday’s “the Mighty Hike” so today we decided to take it easy by going to some wineries. Wineries in Colorado, yes I could not believe it myself but I knew it to be true. And the wines are actually quite good with some making ports and cabernet sauvignons as good as California or Spain. But first we had to do some other things first, before we went to the wineries.

First - we slept in - actually again we slept like the dead, if nothing else on this trip, I learned that the more we exercise, the better I sleep. We woke up and had breakfast and put in a couple of pictures and the log from yesterday, as our fans are waiting, after all. Then we decided who to call for getting signage for our camper. What this means is we want people to know of our excellent adventure - so we want to put on our camper - Laura & Sasha’s Excellent Adventure - www.Laura-N-Sasha.com on our camper. So we went to Angel Signs and asked for someone to come out to us to put the lettering on. So on April 6th they will come out and do that for us.

We then went to Burger King. Sasha wanted to treat me to Italian food, but I wanted to check out the wineries so I said, “NO give me fast food and get me to the wine!” Maybe I was little forceful, but it was already 2 pm and most of the wineries close at 5 pm and we had to find them. All in all, we went to 6 wineries in Grand Junction and the town of Palisade - let me tell you, there are very nice wineries here.

The first winery that we went to was not on the Grand Junction map (the link is a PDF of a similar map we had, in case you want to look at it as we go from winery to winery), as it was so new, Graystone Winery. But the woman was so nice, and it was a neat winery, she had crystal glasses in cases as well as for tasting the wines. She had a White port, which is very unusual and tasted so fine, we had to get it.

- Sidebar - Actually looking at this map, it is better than the one we had, but as I do not have a printer here, we could not use it. Maybe I will get a portable printer in the next couple of months so that I can print out these things on the road. Now that would make me a true mobile woman. - End Sidebar -

Port usually is red but they did not use the skins within the fermenting process, so it is more of a pink color.

From Graystone Winery, I wanted Sasha to try mead, a sugar-honey brew and so we stopped at Rocky Mountain Meadery. They had over 12 different alcoholic substances to try, so by the sixth or seventh, Sasha was feeling woozy, I think. We got a mead bottle to bring home. And we took pictures starting with the Meadery.

Then we went to Plum Creek Winery which was across the street. They had a tasting room in Denver area but the vines were here in Palisade so they decided to make a tasting room area here. It was a beautiful tasting room with high ceilings and a gas fireplace. We tasted their wines and got a bottle. It was funny; she had a metal rooster sculpture outside, so we took a picture of that.

We seem to buy at each winery, I guess my feeling is, we taste the wines, and I feel we should buy something, so we do. I don’t want to think of it as feeling guilty about drinking and not buying, but maybe that is what it is.

We went up the road a bit more and came to the Grande River Winery and they had a few wines there - but by now Sasha was tuckered out from drinking, so I kind of did it on my own. They had a beautiful place and we took a picture or two and then we got on the highway to get to Canyon Wind winery. We got a little lost on the way; there is no exit 44 going east, only going west, which we did not realize until we went past to exit 49 or so.

A little note about Canyon Wind wines - we had their 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon when we went to The Winery Restaurant and had it with lamb and steak. When we got to the winery, I wanted to make sure to try that wine again and so we did. We also tried their other three wines they had available (their port was sold out) and I bought 2 bottles of that Cab because it was so good. We took a picture outside near their vines and then headed back towards Grand Junction and Fruita to get to Two Rivers Winery and to check out Route 340.

This route is quite nice, Sasha had gone along it without me the other day to check out the next trailhead (for April 5th) and he stated that there were also some large and beautiful houses on that route.

We got a little lost again heading back, because I wanted to take Route 6 to Route 70 and then to Route 340, but on Route 6 we headed the wrong way and ended up seeing some elk. These elk were penned up but we thought, well, we probably are not going to see them in nature, they would hide from us most definitely so we decided to take pictures. The first picture taken was under a little duress, as there was a 18 wheeler coming down this dead-end road toward us. So I took the picture and we started to move down the street and he was still coming! Finally he pulled over and we were able to head back to the elk. We got them to come over to the fence so that we could take close ups. The one elk was doing something weird with its head, kind of showing off it seemed so we took a bunch of pictures. We only put two in the website to show you, but we took a bunch. Like we had never seen deer before…us suburbanites!

I called ahead to make sure that the winery was open until 6 pm (they were) and so we headed off. Route 340 went through the back end of Grand Junction and is closest to the Colorado National Monument, so they can look out their windows and see all. This winery is very close to where we are staying, I was very happy to try their wines. They only had a few to try, but their tasting room had high ceilings and chandeliers made from elk antlers. Very cool. We bought a wine there and then headed home for dinner of leftovers and cheese and pretzels (instead of crackers as we had none.) Happy and woozy, we went to bed.

Day 8 - April 3, 2005 - the Mighty Hike

2006-05-30T09:50:00.000-04:00

Day 8 - April 3, 2005 - the Mighty Hike

or What Were We Thinking?

This hike was to go to the Rattlesnake Canyon Arches, the 2nd largest concentration of natural arches, only behind Arches National Park; a 14 mile round trip voyage to the center of the Black Ridge Canyon Wilderness State Wildlife Area.
(--Sidebar--I will try to line up the pictures with the text in blogger but it is not always easy.-)

(Explanation of the day- This hike is a strenuous 7 mile+ ONE WAY hike, that is rated difficult by our topo map and guide. What were we thinking? We really did not know how hard it would be, as let me tell you, hiking in canyon country is unlike anything back home. The Appalachian Trail (or at least the sections we've hiked) are a cake walk by comparison. Here in canyon country, the trails tend not to follow the ridgeline, but instead they directly bisect multiple side canyons that lie in between your ultimate destination. So what this means is that a single one mile trail segment can have several up/down sections of eye-opening steepness. These steep sections also tend to have a barely marked trail, making route finding somewhat challenging and making for slow going. A couple of sections I had to remove my pack and lower it down to Laura by rope.

Our topo map was 1:75,000 scale with 80' contour intervals of the entire Grand Valley, and thus, did not show the excruciating details of the hike we were about to undertake. We knew it would be tough and I was already mentally prepared to turn back before we reached the Arches, if it came to that. If there is anything I've learned thru my years in the outdoors, that is that you need to leave a reserve to make it back to the trailhead. As it turned out with this hike, I just barely stayed within those reserves and was pretty beat by the end. Laura fared better on this hike than me, I must say and I need to bump up my training program when I get back. )

This was the day of the mighty hike, Sasha had figured we could go to this trail which was not too far from the campground, and if we could get to the end, we would see the MOST interesting landscape. Well, how could I resist that? And we forgot to spring forward. So we were off the entire day. It is weird, but my Calendar did not remind me either, and we did not look at the news or anything. Just found out at 11 pm this day because I wanted to listen to the radio - I am the true Radio Girl, have no idea who is singing what song, but like to sing along. So where it states that we started at 10 am, it was really 11 am, oh well.
Actually we did get a late start, having woken up at 8 am, as Sasha wanted to get up at 7 or 7:30 but since I slept in, so did he. We do not have an alarm clock, just a CD/radio in the kitchenette, that also tells time but I do not think it has an alarm on it. So we woke up, had a larger breakfast of oatmeal, bananas, dried fruit and water and then got ready to go.

We went to the trail start (called trail head) which was just outside of the state lands. The trail is maintained by the state and they even have an outhouse at the trail head. There was a sign stating that the trail we were taking was a rigorous 7 mile one way trip, great for those that want to do it as an overnight trail. When I saw that, I was a little worried, because we planned to come and go in a day. We had originally planned 8 hours, four hours in and four hours back. We always set a turn-around time before we go in, something we learned when we read “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer a book about the Mt. Everest disaster in 1996. And we figured we had enough water: five 500ml water bottles and two 1 Liter bottles between the two of us. We had our Cliff bars and apples for lunch, our sturdy hiking boots, walking sticks, and we both had packs on. This hike was also to see how “in shape” we were.

So we started the hike, thinking this wasn’t too bad, what was the map saying for difficult? (It had a D rating on it for mountain bikes so we assumed the same thing for hikers. But it was relatively flat with some rocks. Then we got to the TRUE trail head, which I believe was about a ½ mile away from the trail head at the parking lot. When we got to the true trail head, the sign said no mountain bikes. So that posting had to be for hiking. At that point, you could start to see the hills and valleys that we would have to take to get to the famed arches. So we started going down. The first down was not too bad: I have a rating for downhill hikes, full butt or half butt rating. What this means is do I go down by sitting down and sliding with my butt, or can I go in a crouch position or can I stand upright? This first downhill was a stand upright kind of hill, so not too scary.

Then we went up. It seemed to be the norm; we go down, go up and then walk a bit. So the first walk down was not bad, the second was a half butt, slightly scary way down. But the third, OH MY GOD, scared for the hills; if I could have put my entire body in horizontal fashion to get down I would have. As it was - a full butt downhill - that went into Pollack Canyon. At this point we were like, how are we going to get up that afterwards? But we will talk about that later. So we went walking, seeing cactus and lizards as well as a running stream. I thought, if we were stuck in the canyon, at least we would have water. And maybe some meat, if we could catch a lizard.

Anyway, we went up this unbelievable canyon wall, see pictures please. There is one wall that we had to scamper across that if wet, would have been impassable. But it was very dry, and so we made it across. But one slip and a meal for the mountain lion. I kept looking up (I swear, I am not going to watch another nature show right before I go camping, the last one was about mountain lions and how they catch their prey and how they are found in Colorado and mountainous areas) ready to see a mountain lion and hit it with my walking stick.

Anyway, after we got up this canyon, Sasha said, “that is going to be the last up-down that we will take, if the arches aren’t around this next corner, we are going to turn back.” Well, they were not around the next corner but we did not stop at that point. The fourth up down was gradual (fully upright rating) and on the other side was these very cool rock formations. We sat against some trees next to the formations and had lunch of Cliff bars and apples. We called our parents and let them know where we were. We divided our water and found we did not really have enough. But as we are going back we know that we can get more once we are out of the park.

Eating the apples of course gives you water that you need, which is good. I was slightly dreading the walk back, especially the Pollack Canyon area. So we went down and up the gradual valley first and my confidence went up, which was good. At this point, some trail runners came by. They were running. I repeat - running the trail. They were both rail thin and wearing sneakers. With only one water bottle each…I just don’t know how they do it. We both looked at them in awe.

Then we walked a bit and came to the down hill of Pollack Canyon. There was one part where I was totally afraid, I could not go on my butt, I could not crawl, I HAD to walk across, this was the slippery slope seen in the pictures. My heart was in my throat the entire time. I don’t understand myself sometimes, I walked across it before with no problems, but I was so scared walking back. Go figure. So we went down very slowly, helping each other whenever we could. Sasha had to take off his pack a few times to get through some areas, again, going up is different than going down, your center of gravity is different.

We went back up the Pollack Canyon on the other side, and there was a little area that I was afraid I was going to fall backwards, my arm and leg strength was not there. But Sasha was and he helped me up. Then I was not afraid anymore.

After that, we took it easy and the trail was fine, a couple more up and downs and then a long stretch of land before we got to the first trail head. Would I do this trail again? Yes, with more water and more strength in my arms and legs (better shape than today). Maybe next trip we will get to the famed arches.

After the Mighty Hike, we got some Gatorade and picked up a menu for a Chinese & American restaurant. Sasha’s body was killing him and he didn’t want to make dinner, and neither did I. So we ordered Chinese - Szechuan Chicken (spicy) and me - fried chicken, with a baked potato and a salad. It is interesting to have fried chicken made by a Chinese person, did not think this was possible. We put as much info into the website and went to bed early. A great 8-hour day, and went to bed full and tired.

Day 7 - April 2, 2005 - a lounge kind of day

2006-05-30T09:31:00.000-04:00

Day 7 - April 2, 2005
A Lounge Kind of Day

Spoke to Dan (of Sue and Dan the owners at the park), and he stated that the guys next to us did not even sign in and so they hadn’t even paid. He apologized for the fact that they came in and took our spot. Then the woman came back from the bathroom and he told them that they had taken our spot and she said that they were leaving today. So we will go back to our spot ASAP. He said the next time if we go with everything, to move the picnic table in the middle of the spot so people do not take it. Dan said he thought our set up was great, I said that we had only had it for 6 days, the truck since Christmas 2005.

The people left at 8:30 so we spent the morning going back to our spot, and FOR THE FIRST TIME, without any help (OK, Sasha did call Five Star for information) we got the camper off of the truck. See the pictures of the mighty truck and camper separated. Sasha said his heart was pounding so hard, and he was moving very slowly away from the truck. While he was working on the truck and camper, I took care of household chores and washed our laundry for the first time on the trip. It costs $1.25 for the wash and $1 for the dry - all in quarters no less. Of course, I should know this, life as a camper is kind of like as a college student, and everything revolves around quarters.

So the rest of the day was spent enjoying ourselves at the campground. I spent most of the day inputting pictures, and writing text for the website. Even with internet connection semi-fast, it still takes a while to get the pictures into the website. We took the pictures at a high resolution, (in case we decide to use them for something else beside a website) and each one had to be changed by name - from DSC000111 to something real like Laura and the Mighty Camper. Then the pictures have to be resized to that it does not take half the evening to see our website. One thing that changed half-way through the trip, the compression on the pictures and the quality was just a little less, so that we could have a higher resolution and a smaller file size. This is why some of the Colorado pictures look bigger than others. When you look at April 3rd’s pictures, of our mighty trail hike, you will see this higher resolution. (-Side note-now that we are using Blogger.com, I can put the pictures in higher resolution and all you have to do is click on the picture to see the higher resolution. Just click the back buttom to come back.--)

I also read a book while I was putting info into the website called: The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor and Mimi Hare. So I multi-tasked my day.

Sasha on the other hand, stayed outside and caught some rays as well as smoked a cigar. Then he went shopping to get something for dinner and other miscellaneous things. When he left the campground, he stated that his 110 psi (for the tires) was too high without having the camper on the truck. He stated it felt like it had no give at all and that he was driving on full rubber tires. Each bounce was jarring. So he searched around inside of the truck and found my hiking pole, which he used to get some of the air out of the tires. He actually had 120 psi in each tire and he took it down to 70 psi, the right amount for driving without the camper.

After he started driving correctly, he went to check out a couple of trail heads that we could do for April 3rd. Then he went shopping: to Lowes for 5 pound propane cylinder which they did not have, Wal-Mart did not have either both just had the 20 pound size, but he got everything else (at Wal-Mart.)

When he got home he pulled out our propane cylinder from the camper (which was still pretty heavy) and used it to heat up our little infra-red portable gas grill. The steaks, potatoes and asparagus turned out beautifully and tasted great. We had bought steak knives from before and Sasha got heavy-duty paper plates for our dinner. We opened a bottle of wine that I had gotten at Applejacks in the Wal-Mart campground, and we had a great meal. Even if the wine was pored into a Styrofoam cup, it was still good. We went to bed happy and ready for the new day.

Day 6 - Log for April 1st in Fruita, just outside of Grand Junction

2006-05-27T14:40:00.000-04:00

Monument RV Resort
April 1 - Setting Up and Checking Out the Area

WOW talk about a good night’s sleep, I was dead to the world until I woke up with the sun streaming into our windows at 7:30 am.
From what I can see, there are a bunch of others here as well.

But quiet time in these campgrounds are from 10 pm to 8 am, so I am going to upload a bunch of pictures from yesterday and the day before, I know you all are wanting to see what we are doing. I am using a 3.4 MegaPixel (MP) Nikon camera that we got three or four years ago when we went to the Grand Canyon. We have three batteries, wide angle lens, and other accessories for it. - Sidebar - I thought I lost the accessories a couple of months ago and I bought my own camera, a Canon 3.3 MP camera and got batteries. When we were getting ready for the trip, I found the accessories again and so we brought his camera.

Today is going to be a hiking day; we are going to check out Colorado National Monument which is right down the street from us. We just have to cross the Colorado River and then we are there.

But first, I went over to pay up for the weekend, we are at spot #18, which is great, because it is right across from the bathrooms and there is a high fence behind us. The woman at the counter was very nice, and she gave us a discount, after I got a card (called Good Sam Club.) So that was cool. I also picked up a bunch of brochures about all the things that we can do out here, including going dinosaur digging. I don’t think Sasha would do that, but there is a dinosaur museum a block away from the campground.

I then went back over to the truck and made breakfast for Sasha and I while Sasha took a shower in their bathrooms, and he came back raving about the showers, the bathroom, and the whole park. He absolutely loves it. I must say, I do agree with him. They just renovated the bathrooms and the showers look better than ours do at home, with pink-red tiles 15” tiles, soap in the bathroom and hand dryers as well.

Once we had breakfast, I went to take a shower and then we got ready to go to the Monument. No more jeans, we switched to khakis and long sleeve cool mesh Travel Smith shirts. These shirts are great; they have vents and can be converted to short sleeves. My pants also came from Travel Smith and they can be converted to shorts. Travel Smith is a great place for traveling clothes, but can be a little expensive.

Pictures: First and formost, even though we have been in Colorado since Tuesday, March 29th, we have not really visited parks or seen real nature, until now. So these first pictures are from our visit to Colorado National Monument, a true treasure that should be seen by all who are able to walk. It IS better than the Grand Canyon in that there are less crowds and just as much to see. Plus, it is in the Dinosaur Triangle, three points that have had many sighting of dinosaur digs, footprints and quarries. Hopefully we'll see some of that soon.

We started out on the road at 1 pm, a little late start, but again we are on vacation, so I think it is allowed. We crossed over the Colorado River, although narrow, is still fast moving, probably because of the snow melt. We then went to the Monument. There is a 23 mile Rim Rock Drive road from west to east, starting in Fruita and ending at Grand Junction. The west side is more concentrated with overlooks, campgrounds, and the visitor center. The east side has less drop-offs but still gorgeous views. You actually go 4 miles into the park before you get to the visitor’s center and have to pay. So we saw a lot beforehand. We checked out a few views and took lots of pictures (I know, I know, I’ll have them up real soon!) But please check out the link that I have of road (see above) as you can get an idea of the views. For the engineers out there, this road was developed in the early 1900s and paved during the Depression by Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC.) CCC made several of the trails that we took as well. There are at least 3 tunnels through the rock at the park. We checked out the campgrounds here, not like where we are now, but suitable for living in the park.

We then went to the Visitor Center, and got a Golden Eagle Pass which is different from a National Parks Pass, ours is $65 which is a year’s pass to National parks, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U. S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management parks. So more parks and a little more money. I think it is great, and that we should do this every year. Giving money to parks is a great idea, and so I bought a few more things at the visitor center, including a couple of maps, information on the geology and history of the park and the general area, including Grand Junction.

(picture of Sasha at Independence Monument)

From the Visitor center, we went to Otto’s Trail, which took us to Independence Monument, a place where John Otto, (the man responsible for making this place a national monument) got married. He used to climb the monolith and place an enormous flag at the top for special holidays. We are just in awe of this area; we think it is almost better than Grand Canyon. It is just as pretty, but there are fewer crowds. Actually, there are no crowds and no commercialism, probably because it is a monument, not a national park.

We then went on Coke’s Trail, a short jaunt to a cave. As we did not have flashlights, we did not go in all the way to see where it leads. I think we might do that again to see what it looks like. But the trail was washed out, so we took a shortcut and went back onto the road and hiked back the short distance to our truck.

We had an epiphany at that point, as it was around 4:30 and we felt that we had hardly seen the park at all. We decided then and there that we were going to stay at the campground until Wednesday, or Thursday and then go back to Five Star to get a check up with the camper and then go home. We were planning to go to Dinosaur National Monument, but it is too much, we can take a day trip but not overnight.

After Coke’s Trail (which was so short), we decided to go on CCC trail, a 1.5 mile trail that took us up to the mesa top. We were kinda bummed; it took us 20 to 25 minutes to get to the top while the brochure stated that it should only take 15 minutes. My guess is that we are not in the shape we thought we would be, but that is the way it goes. Of course, going down we did it in 15 minutes or so. From there, it was becoming dusk, and I was very hungry, we had had breakfast, but our lunch was a Cliff bar - unbelievably delicious as they are - and lots of water, but still, I was hungry. So we finished up the drive through the park, we did stop one more time to take pictures and we took a picture on the way down, but then we went into Grand Junction.

We went back over the Colorado River again, and came into the town of Grand Junction. After seeing information on websites, it is always interesting to see the real thing. I think that Grand Junction is a happening town for out here, but you can see homeless or downtrodden people in this town (we came in from the back end or west end I think) and where we parked, there were some people fighting outside of a bar (don’t worry, they were not near us, but we could here them fighting.) It is part college town, part ski area town, and part big town feel.

What I did like was all the restaurants that they had, so you could pick and choose. I found one restaurant from the brochure I had picked up before called “The Winery.” Sasha was like, it will be snooty and are we “dressed for dinner?” But it was not. It was nice, but expensive. I said to Sash, “it was less expensive than the last tank of diesel, so chill, dude.” We had wine from this area, a cabernet sauvignon (1999) from Canyon Wind. We are going to have to take a winery tour, there are over two dozen wineries in the area. Anyway, I had steak and Sasha had lamb chops. We sat right in front of the kitchen, which normally is a bad spot, but the two chefs were cooking out in the open, so we were able to watch the show that they were putting on. It was fun to watch them cook and Sasha kept asking them questions about what they were preparing, as well as them making sure our meal was perfect. It was so nice and the people here are great. We then went home and went to sleep in the shadows of the mountains and the Monument.

-Sidebar- when we came back to the camp, someone had taken our spot that we had paid for, so we had to go to the next spot over. We were a little annoyed but there was nothing that we could do about it. See April 2 for the resolution.

Day 5 - Log for March 31 at Colorado Springs to Grand Junction CO

2006-05-27T10:22:00.000-04:00

Day 5 Colorado Springs to Grand Junction
Out of the Snow and into the Desert!

We got up early (ok I woke up early and played on the computer for an hour before shutting it down because of low power.) We then started moving around and Sasha went out to the campground bathrooms; when he came back in, he told me that when we had hooked up the power last night, the plug was loose and that was why we did not have any electrical power last night. So we plugged in the laptop and cell phones to charge them up.

Last night was COLD so we had the heat up high, thereby making us wonder how much propane we had available. We realized that we need a blanket at least to keep us warmer. Sasha first used the kitchen to boil water and made me hot chocolate and he had coffee. Then it was my turn at the kitchen, to make hot oatmeal for breakfast. We had gotten a covered pot yesterday so I washed it and used it for breakfast. I have to remember that the sink is not as large as ours at home as I splashed our blanket on the bed. But making breakfast was pretty easy and before long, we were eating.

We had decided before breakfast that we were going to stay at the campground for another day. But when Sasha had powered up the computer, he checked the weather for Colorado Springs vs. Grand Junction and found Grand Junction was 50 F today, almost 30 degrees warmer than where we were. And it was supposed to go to 7 F this evening at Colorado Springs. That helped decide it for us. We started moving quicker and got on the road by 12:45 pm to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond, (using the internet, my computer and the GPS system I was able to figure out which store was the closest) where we got fleece blanket, a down comforter (for inside the duvet), a mixing spoon (I used a plastic spoon for mixing the oatmeal, which slightly melted as I was cooking), and a soap dish for when we go to campgrounds and I need to bring in my soap. The things you learn while camping! Got lunch at Chipotle, a Mexican restaurant similar to Baja Fresh but with bigger proportions.

Then we headed out to Grand Junction at 2 pm.

We went through many different ecosystems and environments. Just going across the state of Colorado we saw more and took more pictures than going from Sterling, Virginia to eastern Colorado. It is a wonderful state and I figure we will be coming here more often. These were all taken March 31st.
<<<<<-------- Here is Garden of the Gods, a state park right outside of Colorado Springs. As it was snowing, cold and windy and we wanted to get to Grand Junction before night-time, we did not get to the park. So this was outside of the truck window as we were going past.

This picture is when we were out of Colorado Springs on the way to Grand Junction. As you can see, very dark skies and there was snow falling. ----->>>>>>>

<<<<<<------------ Route 24 West-bound out of Colorado Springs.

----->>>>>>>>
Normally, I would not put this picture in, however, I am not a spice person like my husband and he wanted to have burritos from Chipotle, like I talked about above. The burrito is huge even in this picture, where I have reduced the size down to 14%. I told him that this was the last burrito for me on this trip!

<<<<<-------- The hills and high plains, with snow.

Wilkerson Pass at an elevation 9507 at 333 pm 22 F took picture as we were checking out the plains area. We took a bunch of pictures before this, but there is such the contrast, we were in the mountains with snow swirling around us and now we are down in the plains (high plains at 8909 elevation) and now snow, slightly sunny conditions. Amazing - we actually have a bar, but internet access goes in and out through this area. I guess most people do ranching around here, and do things with tourists, because I can not see what else would be done around here. We are on Route 24, and it is a little windy. We keep having to put on the sun glasses and then take them off as it is partly cloudy but very bright.

<<<<<<<<-------------

I'm a little cold on the way to the continental divide.

Unbelievable, we have several bars for the internet and I am on Cellular One for my cell phone and Sasha’s phone has no service. 28 F, elevation 8900 ft ASL, around 4 pm. We are starting to go up in elevation bit more now. Just saw our first Bison on this trip but it was too far away for a picture. Supposedly Bison meat is great to eat because it is leaner but still good but I don’t know for sure. Most of the area that we are going through does not have any homes or trailers, just lots of land.

Most excellent mountains all visible from the road.--->>>>

Starting to snow again, looks like we are going right into a serious snow area, lights on safety (fogs too!)

We went to a little overpass to get a couple of pictures of Mt Columbia and other mountains, as well as to see the plains a little more then went over the Arkansas river which was moving fast. Passed a prison right before Buena Vista, pretty nice views for prison people!

<<<<----------------Sasha at Collegiate Peaks overlook outside of Buena Vista.

Went through the town of Leadville, hit an elevation of 10,000 ft ASL. 22 F at 516 pm. Very historical little town with Victorian buildings and almost dirt roads. Victorian and Gregorian buildings very quaint, with mining museum. First sign of something urban - Family Dollar and Safeway. Took pic of interesting sign.-------------->>>>>>>
Just passed a place to do dogsled or snowmobiling.

<<<<---------Sasha on the Continental Divide with truck. In case you can not see it, the elevation is 10,424 and we are at the Tennessee Pass. Why it is called that, I have no idea. But there was snow here and to the right of the picture was the entrance to a ski area.

Coming on now to the continental divide: it is 534 pm, at an elevation of 10,428 ft ASL. Temp: 19 F. No bars. Cold and windy, we took a picture or two with the sign. The continental divide is pretty cool anyway, one side the rivers flow to the west, and the other side rivers flow to the east. I do not believe that there is any river on the continental divide, as it would get totally confused. There is blue skies to the east and clouds (probably snow too) to the west, north and south. Ski Cooper, a national forest and ski area is right here as well. We also just saw a transit bus go by.

We are back to snow at 5:50pm.

And then out it. Only blue skies ahead, Baby! We went past a mountain that Sasha had skied on.

<<<--------- OK it looks like our dashboard, but look closely in the snow, those are houses. The mining town of Gilman is on the side of the mountain. I turned on the flash to really get a good picture and ended up flashing Sasha instead. On very twisty roads as we go up. Got up to 9200 ft ASL and then went down to 7915 ft ASL at Minturn. Most of Minturn is very cute, with an old town ski town feeling. We went past a mining town on the mountain, called Gilman. We now have great internet service: 4 bars and full service with my cell phone.

We are now on I-70 at 6:18pm.
<<<<<------ Going down the mountainon the way to Grand Junction. We went to a car wash place in Silt, so that Sasha could wash the junk off of the car and camper. Got to Grand Junction and gassed up (gosh and golly, the prices are high - $2.38 for gallon of diesel, our highest price yet.) Sasha had a little problem at the tank, I guess when it is later at night, the establishment only lets people fill up $75 worth of gas, and then we have to do a separate transaction. I guess, even here, they are afraid people will leave without paying but the transaction was pay at the pump so I do not understand it. So Sasha had to do a separate transaction for $5 more - holy moly, $80 at the pump…traveling is great, gas prices are not.

Notice the blue skies ahead! That is where we are headed.Towards Grand Junction. ---------------->>>>>>

We got to the Monument RV Park that we are staying at, the owners are not in the office (it is 10 pm, understandable,) and they have a deposit window. The place is beautiful, even at night. We are near the Colorado River, but also close to town, and the Shower and bathroom are fabulous. You don’t think of these things when you are traveling in hotels and motels, but you REALLY do think of it when you are camping. The showers look beautiful; we will see how they work tomorrow. Sasha got the camper set up while I put down the deposit and reserved our space. I was exhausted, even though we did not exercise or do any physical activity, but we went up and down in elevation (we are now at 4400 ft ASL) and Sasha says that he has a headache from the elevation. I think I am tired from the taking off and putting on so many layers of clothing and fighting against the wind when we were walking around to get stuff…who knows, but I’m sure I will be rested for tomorrow’s adventures.

Day 4 - Log for March 30, 2005 - Wal-Mart in Thorton, CO - to Colorado Springs CO

2006-05-26T13:40:00.000-04:00

March 30, 2005 From Walmart to Colorado Springs

Our Campground at Walmart in Thorton, CO; Our Campgroundwas Wal-Mart parking lot,they have a policy that you can stay overnightand we figured we were going to buy things that evening so we stayed and bought.

Another view of Camp Wal-Mart with Wal-Mart in the background.You can see that there are other campers around. This first night was spent a little wobbly as Sasha was still getting used to putting down the jacks.

One call to Five Star RV and we learned that up means down and down means up on the jack remote control. Confused yet? This is why I have Sasha do this part, I would be totally frustrated and confused. -Sidebar- The reason that we use jacks while parked is to stablize the camper as you go from side to side and in and around the camper. As there was a lot of wind that night, having it stablized makes it more like a house and less like a boat on the high seas.

Unmade Bed - no we did not sleep in it like that, we had gotten sheets at Wal-Mart

We are going to leave the Wal-Mart area soon but we need to get a few more things that we could not get or find last night. We went to Wal-Mart, then had lunch at Tacocita (an Mexican American restaurant that we could see out our windows last night), grocery shopping at King Soopers, wine shopping at Applejacks and then on the road to Aurora, CO to air up the tires to 110 psi (Sasha said we needed hi powered air pumps like those in truck stops.

So we went to Flying J in Aurora. While Sasha was airing up the tires, I was finding a place for us to stay the night. I found Goldfield RV Campground which is just a little outside of Garden of the Gods state park. We started on the road to Goldfield at 4 pm from Aurora. On the way I took pictures of the countryside; it started to flurry for a bit, we are starting to go up in elevation: 7100. Temp 43 F. There is snow on the mountains but it has stopped snowing on the road here. It is amazing, looks like suburban area on one side and ranches on the other and then surrounded by mountains…So cool. I could understand why people do not want to leave here, it is very beautiful, yet can still be urban. I have full bars for the internet. The road is kind of bouncy, especially with the camper on now.

On the outskirts of Colorado Springs already gone down to 41 F, elevation 6599 ft ASL.

Here we are at Goldfield RV area.This was before it snowed. Sasha had learned about the jacks at this point which was great as there were high gust of wind that night into morning.

Sasha was able to figure out how to hook up to the power as you see in the forground.

But like I stated before (see next post), we were really on battery power as the power cord was loose from the plug. So that night we did not use the lights too much. And I was o

nly able to use the laptop for an hour that morning before my batteries went dead. Afterwards, we were able to recharge before the snows came in.

We got to the Campground, interesting, not at the park but just down the road apiece. More of an urban campground, but they have showers and power hook ups that we are going to use. I still have 4 bars for internet so I will use the T-Mobile rather than pay $4 a day for internet access. That is cheap though if I wanted faster speeds I would go for it.

Sasha and I set up camp, putting more things away and he went to take a hot shower. We decided, since we are paying for it, to use their systems rather than our. I also think we a still a little unsure about taking a shower in our own shower but we will do it this trip, I think. We also got a lot of literature on what happens in this area and we will probably eat some ham sandwiches, play cards and go to bed happy. We are starting out slowly but learning as we go along.

Day 3 - Log for March 29, 2005 - Getting the Camper!

2006-05-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

Day 3 Brighton CO - Wal-Mart CO 80033

Picking up our camper at Five Star RV, the dealer we chose after a long and exhaustive search. They treated us right and we recommend them.

We got on the road to get the car and drop off the truck at Five Star at 9 am. Sasha had to leave me at Enterprise because the guy was not there at 9 am; he had to drop off a car to someone else. I talked to some retirees who pick up and drive cars and trucks to different Enterprise locations; they came from Cheyenne, WY. Once the guy came back, we looked over the car (a blue one) and I was off to find Sasha. Although I thought I was going the wrong way, a common problem for me without a compass, I managed to find him at the Five Star RV Center without getting too lost.

Picking up our camper at Five Star RV!

Once there, Sasha got a time frame of when we were supposed to come back ~3pm and we went to have Breakfast - Village Inn. Sasha said that there are a lot of Village Inns in Colorado, good places to get breakfast, lunch or dinner at any time of the day. We both had a more healthy breakfast of fake egg and veggie omelets, with fruit and whole grain pancakes. Very nice breakfast that was our lunch as well. After breakfast, we went back to the motel (Super 8) and I just paid a little more to have a 3 pm checkout.

Sasha and I snoozed for a little bit and then I did some work while Sasha snoozed for a little longer. We left the motel at 3pm where it was drizzling, and 60 F. At Five Star they did not have our truck ready yet so we went to Wal-Mart, and picked up bed-sheets and towels to match our colors in the camper. Then we went back to Village Inn and had an early dinner (I totally felt like the episode in Seinfield where he had dinner with his parents down in Florida at 5 pm - but we had “dinner” at 4 pm.) We brought in the laptop and Sasha surfed while I read.

Let's go inside...

Virgin kitchenette and Table Slide out!

1:00 am- got the necessities, including bottom sheet and extra pillows. Plus paper supplies, water, and some snacks. It took a while to get everything at Wal-Mart as it was so late at night; there was no one to help us find anything. I guess they do the shelf stocking at night and there were boxes everywhere. Very hard to get to things needed. And we could not find Blankets for the life of us. The guy stated that they don’t have winter coats either, so maybe they don’t have blankets when it is spring. Whatever.

(Sasha) Well, after picking up camper, the very "green" duo head to a local Wal Mart to stock up on supplies and provisions for the road ahead. We choose to shop at Wal Mart as they are "RV and camper friendly", allowing customers to overnight in their parking lots.

Not that we particularly like camping in a mega storeparking lot, but when it's 11 pm, dark and you're tired and just want to sleep, it sure is convenient in a pinch not to have to find the closest campground or public lands to "dry camp" or "boondock". And the price is right. In return, we dropped a couple hundred bucks with Sam Walton and patronized a local mexican restaurant in the same shopping center.

Day 2 - Log for March 28, 2005 - Going to Colorado & Getting Camper

2006-05-26T12:47:00.000-04:00

Getting There

Going over the river (we think it is the Mississippi)

We had breakfast at the hotel’s next door neighbor: Ethan’s Place. We both had omelets - I asked for no hash browns and Sasha got a spicy omelet with hash browns. They got our order slightly mixed up with him getting my order with hash browns. He had started to put the salt and pepper on the omelet when I looked at mine and was like,”hey this is not ham?” He looked at his (which turned out to be mine) and we switched. Sasha said I should just order food like it is on the menu but I think that I should order it the way I want it, with or without whatever I want. Anyway, my breakfast was a little spicier than I normally have but it was a good breakfast for $13 (for us both) with tax and tip.

We got on the road at 10 am their time (our time 11 am). Sunny skies, with lots of wind, which has decreased our mileage by .1 (14.9 mpg average) but I still think it is better than most trucks. Elevation 520 feet ASL, internet connection at 3 bars and holding steady.

Yahoo, we are now in Missouri, took a couple of pictures of the Mississippi river as we crossed it. The road here is bumpy, elevation 470 f ASF. Sunny conditions windy, 60 F at 11 am. It looks greener here in MO. Internet connection is between two to five bars.

We are going to be going over the Missouri river and we will take pics of that. Just went over the River, most of the pics were of this casino American Casino which is on a river bed jutting out into the river - weird to see almost looks like a river boat but is a casino built on stilts : 11:15 am 500 feet ASL 63 F. sunny and nice. Road bouncy.

Road is finally smoother than before. Or not, stopping at Flying J to get diesel. Got the diesel, Sasha stated that all the truckers were asking him questions about the truck, stuff like, 19” wheels (unusual for this truck) larger flares (things around the tire wheels) how is the 2005 running, etc. We are the “Talk of the Truck Stop.” I must say, these Flying Js are quite good, you have everything you could want (except fruit and veggies, I guess) that you can buy in their store, including books and CDs and DVDs. Got some dried fruit, sandwiches and drinks for the next leg of the road.

Fuel: 33.29 gallons, price 2.079 per gallon, amount: 69.21

Back on the road at 12:30 pm. sunny and 61 F. 850 Feet ASL elevation yet flat country with lots of farms and lots of trucks on the road.

Found a hotel and car rental place in Brighton, CO. Still bumpy road.

Just saw a B-1 flying overhead @ or near Aullville, MO. Boy, this state is long.

Just saw a Gap outlet; we must be close to Kansas City, more billboards showing. Three bars.

Hit some traffic just outside of Kansas City, there was an accident, someone managed to flip their car into a gully.

Horrible roads very bouncy. Through Kansas City.

Now in Kansas, KS sunny road bouncy, 72 F, 802 ft ASL. 3:18 pm. three Bars.

Just crossed over the Kansas river, at 3:47, very sunny, 74 F, 900 ft ASL. Those large columns in the background look like it might be granaries, but we are not sure. This was outside of Topeka, Kansas.

Went through Topeka KS, at 4:10 pm, sunny 75 F, 962 ft ASL elevation, bouncy roads, two bars.

Just went past several oil wells, we are near exit 316, cloudy skies, elevation 1317 ft ASL. Three bars.

6:52 pm we are near exit 189 and there is a beautiful sunset. At elevation 1865 my ears are popping. We are going to try to take a picture of this.

Stopped in Hays to get gas and food. 2142 feet, ASL dark and 7:30 pm. Lost internet connection.

7:58 pm back on the road - got Arby’s wraps for dinner, probably another 5 hours to hotel. 2081 ft elevation, 61 F no stars out, probably cloudy.

We are now in Colorado, it is now 9:00 (Mountain Time) 11:00 our time. Elevation is 3926 ft ASL, 52 F no stars so it is probably cloudy, and we keep going back and forth with this car, we pass him, and he passes us, very annoying. The road is bumpy and we have no internet connection. Sasha’s cell phone does not work, no bars, mine has a few and the service is Unicel.

We went to Limon in Colorado, and I played around with the internet until I got it up and running, 3 bars. We went to top off the tank and Sasha wanted to wash the car so that is what we are doing at 10:30 at night. The temp is around 60 F, no stars so cloudy skies and an elevation of unknown (5489 ft ASL) as the GPS is acquiring info right now. I will be driving in a bit to give Sasha a break. We are approximately 75 miles away from our destination tonight.

Arrived at Brighton CO at 12:30 am at the Super 8, dark and 50 F. Got a room reserved and brought everything in from the car (we will be dropping the truck off in the morning at Five Star RV Center and having them put the camper on. Sasha does not want us to have anything in the truck while they are doing that, which makes sense, but we were so tired from the road.) Asked for an 8 am wake-up call, we will pick up our rental car, drive down to Five Star and then come back to the hotel so that Sasha can snooze for a little longer.

Day 1 Log for March 27, 2005 - Going to Colorado & Getting Camper

2006-05-26T12:13:00.000-04:00

Day 1: Sterling, VA - Greenville, IL

We took a picture of me in the car with the computer. Sasha and I got on the road at 10:45 am (almost two hours after our stated time for 9 am leaving) and I set up the GPS system on the computer and started trying to figure out our route- first it stated that we were going to Chicago, and then it was give us back routes. Ultimately, I will figure out how to use this program while on the road. There is slight drizzle as we are going through the Loudoun County countryside, taking Rt. 15 over the bridge on the way towards Frederick. Internet had Full bars Very bouncy road before the bridge.

In Maryland, saw a train while we were going over the Potomac River. Only two bars for internet in MD.

We just got onto Rt. 340 in MD not drizzling now. Exterior temperature is 47 F.

Just got on I-70 at 11:30 am, this is the road we will be on for most of the trip. Four bars as we are going through the hills of MD.

Just past Braddock Mountain 985 feet Above Sea Level (ASL) and our ears just popped.

Already I have to make a pit-stop, the caffeine I had this morning is making itself known. 11:40 gas prices: 2.11 for regular, 2.34 for diesel (what the truck takes.)

There seems to be a few more cars on the road than what we thought…People going to where they need or taking vacations like us? Who knows? But we are still moving at a good clip of 70 mph.

Just powered down and then turned the computer back on, the internet was not working, I believe, because of intense shaking when we were going over a bumpy patch. Working ok now, we are at an area where there is a red bar, means very slow connection. Slightly more drizzle-more like light rain. Now rain. Now a bit of fog and rain which makes this hard Sliding Hill with elevation of 1249 feet, ASL.

Saw a covered bridge going along Route 68.

Haystack Mountain 1240 feet ASL no internet service, had some problems with GPS and internet before this. Raining and my ears are popping again. Internet service goes in and out. Foggy again.

No more fog @1:20pm but it was slow going for a while there.

Back to fog again.

Out of fog again.

Woo Hoo, in West Virginia at 1:35 pm elevation 2381 ft. ASL, no rain actually sunny.

Raining again as we go onto I-79 to I-70. Elevation 1025 going over a river.

Woo hoo; we are now in Pennsylvania, 2:11 pm, going up in elevation, raining again.

Back on I-70 again at 2:40 pm slight rain and around 50 F outside. A few bars now.

We are now in West Virginia again for a short time, at 2:57 with rain, and elevation of 1330. We just checked online to find out what the diesel prices were in Flying J in Kirkersville, OH. $2.19 which is not bad, full bars for internet.

We are now in OH having gotten here at 3:09 pm with the rain, 815 ft elevation and on Rt. 470 going around Wheeling.

Back on 70

Making stop at Flying J to get diesel $77.33 35.15 gals 2.20 a gallon engine hours 92.8 mileage 3341.

http://www.greenvilleusa.org/events.htm to find hotels

Back on the road 5:35 pm spitting rain as we are going to Columbus OH; we are discussing whether to be at a super 8 or a best western, based on which one has a kitchen.

Looked at my cell phone and I have no service for the phone but do have service for the internet with T-Mobile. Interesting.

Just saw a sign for MI Homes-looks like they are building out here. MI Homes was the company that made our home and we don’t really see them in Virginia area anymore. Our guess is that it got too expensive to build out by us.

Seeing lots of farms and relatively flat land, we are at an elevation of 955 feet ASL. Sasha is happy, he hit 15 mpg on the truck, probably because he has the cruise control on. But this is pretty cool for a big truck. For some reason, I still do not have service with my phone. And we are almost in Indiana. What is it with Cingular?

We are out of Ohio and in Indiana, at 7:11 pm with no rain just cloudy, elevation at 1100 feet ASL, and an exterior temperature of 43 F.

It is very dark out here, can’t really see very much but the elevation is roughly the same as Ohio, at 960 but then it started to go up, to 1050 feet ASL. Yea! My phone is working again, strange service company but I am recharging it now.

Stopped and got dinner before we got into Indianapolis, went to Wendy’s 8 pm.

In downtown area of Indianapolis 8:40 - I keep wanting to say Annapolis!

We are out of Indianapolis now, trying to look for hotels close to St. Louis.

Yahoo, we are now in Illinois @ 9:43 pm, cloudy skies I guess, as it is dark and no stars visible. The elevation is 590 feet ASL; we just watched as a 18 wheeler and a SUV fought each other over a lane change, the 18-er was trying to move over to the right lane from the left lane and the SUV would not let him in the lane. Then the 18 wheeler passed another truck and then GOT off the highway speeding. Where are the cops when you need them to pull over the stupid people?

Oh, and the exterior temp is 44 F.

We are going to stay at Greenville, IL Best Western. It will be interesting to go to a Best Western; I have not been to one in years!

The road is very smooth here, I can type and there is hardly any bouncing. There still are a bunch of people on the road at this time of night.

Huge Cross on the side of the road and has lights on it or is lit? At exit 158 on I-70 in Illinois.
Day 1.5 (Night) stayed at a Best Western in Greenville, IL. The hotel was nice for $60 with a refrigerator. The shower is OK, but nice hot water and made for tall people. No stooping here. The beds were very comfy and they had free high speed internet access! Hilton and Marriott take note: Best Western free internet service is a great idea.

Atlanta Trip

2006-05-26T10:11:00.000-04:00

Trip to Atlanta Georgia for a New Toy!
Or Getting Laura's Motorcycle
January 14-15, 2006

We started out at 7:30 pm to cloudy skies and the quest for a motorcycle for Laura. Sasha had bought a cycle on eBay and the seller was out of Denver…the delivery would have been high! But the seller said he could send it to Atlanta, Georgia, and we could pick it up there. So road trip time again! I took the first leg of the trip; Sasha got the truck ready and set up the computer to use the Delorme system so we could see where we were going. Sasha had already mapped out our trip ahead of time so it was a lot easier.

I had gotten sandwiches at “the corner bakery” so we had our dinner for the road, so we were off. It started to rain around 8:30 pm, but with the Super Duty, there are so many settings for the windshield wipers that I could find a setting that would keep it clear.

I drove for about 2.5 hours and then we were deciding to get gas, Sasha said; get off at this exit now! I was like ug can I make it? Of course I did. Can’t remember the name of the town or the gas station, but it was so cool, they had everything a trucker would want, sort of like the flying J’s but not corporate. They had great snacks and a nice bathroom, plus toys, video games, and shopping galore. I obviously spent a little bit of time in there, as Sasha came in, paid and moved the truck. Then came looking for me.

Then he drove. I was at the computer and checked out the possible places to stay, hoping for some place that would have good connection, a good bed and restaurant for breakfast. We were going to stop at Wytheville, but it was not on the right route, so we had a change of plans.

How did we pick the place? I have the philosophy that a good place to stay is where the truckers go, the price is right and there are decent restaurants and motels. We were coming up to Hillsville and were seeing signs for several hotels and gas stations and I said this one will do. We stayed at a Super 8 for $44 a night, and it had continental breakfast. The beds were OK and the price was great.

But we did not have breakfast there, but instead at Shoney’s, which was across the street. We are going to be getting on the road again shortly, I have to finish breakfast now and we will have a couple of pictures up tonight.

Of course, getting things done at night always depends on how tired you are and what is the internet speed in which to do it. Obviously we did not get much up on Friday night, but did do some. We drove down to Atlanta on Saturday and met Dan & Coco, the friend of Andy whom we bought the bike from. Along the way we saw some strange sights, such as this Peach that was a water tower (we think Greenville, SC), and the BMW factory Spartanburg, SC that makes Mini Cooper and an SUV (we saw the Mini outside of the plant).

We saw that NC had lots of vineyards off of the route that we were taking, which was surprising to us. We did not think that there were any vineyards in NC. But we were wrong. We are going to have to come down here again with the camper and check out some of these vineyards.

Got to Dan’s house around 2 pm Saturday afternoon, there was a little traffic later in the morning but all in all, pretty good to get to Atlanta in ~10 hours or so.

We met Dan and Coco, his girlfriend, and he has quite a few bikes in his garage. We were a little worried at first, when we tried to get it running, (it took Dan pushing Sasha on the bike up a hill…
I wish I had a picture of that, that would have been funny, but no dice.) Anyway, both Dan and Coco were very nice, got us a couple of pictures with Sasha and I on the bike, then we paid, and Dan helped Sasha put the bike onto the truck.

They tied it down with sturdy tied-down straps and we were back on the road. We had seen a flipped car on the way in to Dan’s house and we were hesitant on taking the same road back out, but Atlanta police got the area cleared and we were back out of Georgia real fast. With Sasha driving, we made it back up to VA by evening, having ribs at Sonny’s in Greenville, SC (which were fabulous I had the baby back ribs and Sasha had the three type pork) (and some of mine, as I could not eat it all.)

We managed to make it to Wytheville, VA by Saturday evening and stayed at a Comfort Inn, with hi speed internet access and a continental breakfast, plus a nice room and bathroom. We got up a little late, and had breakfast and then Sasha was like, well, maybe we should check out a winery or two (I really love this guy!!!) since we had time. And then he said, if we do the scenic tour, that would be good too. So who was I to resist?

I found a winery that I thought was perfect, it was on the Blue Ridge Highway, we had never been on that highway and never to that area. Of course we did not take pictures of the winery, but we have the link to check it out.

Chateau Morrisette is the name of the winery that we checked out. Sasha was amazed at such a classic winery was in such a place…Floyd County? This winery should be in Loudoun or Fauquier County, but then it would be so popular, the wines would be exorbitant. I tried 14 different wines and Sasha tried 3 (he was driving.)
This place also has a restaurant…a very good restaurant. So we had lunch and a bottle of Angel Chardonnay. I had a trio of salads and Sasha had fried oyster salad with, wait for it now, CHERRIES. This is a man who can not have sweet with savory, but he so wanted the fried oysters that he was willing to have the cherries with the salad. The manager came to each table to see how we liked the meal and Sasha of course, asked him what was the Chef thinking having cherries in a salad like that? But all in all, a very good meal. I went back over to the winery tasting area and bought 5 cases for Dulles Area Association of Realtors, as they are having their Production awards in February and I thought it was a great idea to get the wines here. I got the Angel Chardonnay and The Black Dog Red. Both very good wines for the price.

By the time we left there, we were off schedule, still down in Southwestern VA and have to get to our house, unload the bike and upload the pictures and words. It is 289 miles from the winery to home, will we make it? Of course but the big thing is getting the bike off of the truck and into the garage. We shall see.

Well, we did get the bike off of the truck and into our garage, with not that much fanfare, but it was late and dark when we did it. The next bike will be so much easier because we will know what to do.

Signing off until the next trip,
Laura-n-Sasha.com

Tall Pines

2006-05-12T21:21:00.000-04:00

On the Road Again! To Tall Pines Campground in Sanford, VA

April 21-24

Hi again, we are on the road once again, this time to a truck camper rally that Sasha found out about on RV.net, a forum all about RVing for regular campers and truck campers.

We got a very late start on Thursday night, leaving the house around 11pm. We had so many different things to do to get ready for this trip, especially since we were bringing a trailer along for the ride. You may have seen the Trip to Atlanta but I did not put in the trip to PA for Sasha’s motor bike.
He got one too, it is white with blue. Anyhoo, Once that occurred, Sasha decided we needed to get a trailer for all the stuff we would need to carry, so he has been researching trailers almost as long as he has been researching campers!

We are at Traveled Lane Trailers, where we stayed the night, coming in at around 1 am.

We made very good time considering we were going ~ 60 miles per hour, way below what people on the beltway were doing. TLT is in Centreville, MD, a nice small town but it is getting repaved so it was quite bouncy.

It took us almost an hour to set up as Sasha wanted the trailer and the camper to be Jack-knifed so that we could get the stairs out and get in. I said we should just park across the way and Sasha said, no that is a house over there. See picture here. No House.

But it is hard to see in the dark at 2 am. We finally fell asleep ~2:30 with cars passing us at least 60 mph on Rt. 213. We woke with the cars and trucks going past us for morning rush hour. (Right it is Friday morning, most people are going to work. Is this what retired people feel like? Or has it just been a while since I was on vacation?) This is what our camp area looked like:

Sasha is meeting with the people at TLT looking at the trailers. Then we are going to find a grocery store and get a few things that I missed when I wrote out the spreadsheet for items to pack. It is probably a good idea that the person who cooks should write out the list of food supplies, as I forgot a basic, Olive oil for cooking. But I don’t cook so I did not even put it on the list. What I did was make a spreadsheet (in Excel) of all the things we would need to bring each trip. I will post it later so that others can use it. But I think most would have their own list, however, this is a good guide on what we will be bringing each time.

One of the reasons it took so long to get started yesterday was that we had winterized the camper in the fall and we now had pink stuff in the lines, so Sasha had to de-pinkify. Get that stuff out. Also too, it took Sasha 1.5 hours just to get the trailer from U-Haul, I guess they have to run all sorts of test to make sure that we will bring it back. Sasha said that there was only one person there and he was answering the phones rather that wait on him. I think that is bad, a customer in the store is usually better than one on the phone. In-store person is going to buy right then and there, person on phone can only reserve.

So it did not take very long to get the stuff on the list together, and then we packed it into the camper and trailer. We are definitely bringing more stuff than before, just because we can. There is the motor bike of Sasha’s and our two bicycles, plus lots of wood and extra stuff. I do not know the half of what is in there. We are back on the road to the campground, having gone to a FoodLion and picked up the olive oil, sea salt and other necessities. It is windy but warmish already 68 degrees. Wow, time to get into shorts.

We are in boat county out here and there seems to be lots of people on the road going the same way we are, probably going to work, but it is 10:30 already, so I don’t know. It is beautiful out here. So green, and open, with lots of trees.

We are going over a bridge for Choptank River to get into Salisbury. Took a picture of the Hyatt on the river in Salisbury, looks huge! Also took a picture of the Chamber of Commerce building. I went to Salisbury a few times when I worked for Long & Foster, doing some training classes at their offices.

Going through the town now, it is built up more than when I was there but at the same time, there are a bunch of empty buildings too. But there is a Wal-mart and a McDonalds, two icons that this is a large town. Small towns have a McDonalds and a stop light. At least that is what I think. Dairy Queens do not count.

Still have 3 to 4 bars even though we are out of Salisbury. We just went over the Nanticoke River - it is really swampy, good for water fowl. (Sasha said it not me.)

We arrived into Tall Pines around 12 noon on Friday and saw a few truck campers on the way in. There were quite a few people already here. We got our spot, #70, a 100 foot pull through area that was near other truck campers but not as close to them. See map. And then we set up. We saw Ron when we came in, and got the itinerary of what the weekends activities were going to be. We took a snooze as we had got up early this morning.

We had an early dinner (for us! at around 7pm) and then went over to the karaoke. They had already started the singing and I was antsy to get there.

We sang one song - from Grease, Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta duet and I think we were a hit. That song is one that we always sing together and really like. I usually see Grease at least once a year; it is one of my favorite movies.

Before we went over to the music, Sasha and I were checking out my camera and playing with the features. I was able to make a video of Sasha talking about the weather. It looked really good, so I decided to try it that evening. I can not put video on this website, but I will have them somewhere else soon. Actually I believe I can get video on this blogging website, the videos have to go through a review process, but I believe they will be on here soon! Ladies Line Dancing and Kids Dancing.

Here are some of the pictures that I took on Friday Evening:
Dick and Mary Jane:
Harper Valley PTA:
Ralph & Sherry:
Redneck Girls:
So we got people singing and dancing that evening. I will put pictures up soon. While we were at the campground, I tried to go online and found that I could not! And my cell phone did not work very well either! What’s up with that? My phone has always worked well in lots of areas, so this was quite a surprise. So Outer Maryland is a bit of a surprise.

Saturday looked a little dark and cold, but we had breakfast and got out and about as soon as we could. I wanted to go around to all of the truck campers to take pictures and get to know everyone. I figured if I could get a face to a name, I would remember it better. So off we went.

Peoples Names	Picture
Skip and Marlee
Bob & Jan

Ron and Sully
Cotton With Mini
Driving & Meeting
Bud & Colleen
Dwayne and Kids
Sharon, Where's Dale?
Jimmy's Lance
Matt & Kathy
Emily & Bobby
Natalie & Mike
Steve Where's Wanda?
Cool camper - who owns it?
Ralph & Sherry Northern Light
Paul & Can with Stable Lift
Teresa & Dean
John & Harriet with their Lance
Lee and Elie
Gary & Debbie with the Lance
Richard (Where is Lavssa?) with the Elkhorn
Dick & Mary Jane with their Lance
Skip & Linda
Lee's Lance
Heather Emma Nancy & Jana Lance

It took a little longer than we thought to do this as there were a lot of truck campers and we would chat with everyone. We got through the poolside people and some of the other areas and decided to have lunch. Thankfully we did not have to make lunch; we got hot dogs, chips and sodas for $2 for each person, which was cool. Unfortunately, as we were eating, the heavens opened up and we got poured on. We could see the clouds coming but we wanted to chance it. So we did. We went back to the camper before we got soaked.

After a while, I decided that it had stopped raining and we went back out and saw more people with their campers. We ended up with those on the bay front where Nancy and her kids had lost their car keys, supposedly in the sand. So everyone was looking around for the keys. In the end, the keys were in a sweater pocket. I guess the best thing to do is have at least 2 sets and one set should be kept somewhere outside of the camper.

That story brings up another one…Jan and Bob from Canada had lost their keys too, but they knew where the keys were: inside the locked camper. As in they could not get into the camper. What I don’t understand is, how could you lock the camper door without the keys? I have locked my keys in a car (while the car was running, that was a bit scary, but yea for AAA!) but in a camper, you have to have the key to lock it. Anyway, they found a child that was still up, and got the pass-through window open so that the child could get through. The adults told the child how to open the door and Bob and Jan where able to get in. Anyway, that camper is a Bigfoot, so maybe Bigfoot could explain how you could slam the door and lock it. That happened Friday night and Nancy’s keys happened on Saturday, so thankfully no key incidents happened on Sunday.

We all had to get the best rig before and after 1998 to Ron by 4 pm, so we voted and went back to the camper for a snooze and to curse at the weather (it started raining pretty hard after that.)
We had taken the steaks out to have for dinner kind of late (3 pm and they were still rock hard at 6pm) so Sasha got out the Jiffy pop and made popcorn see pictures. Then he made us hot ham and cheese sandwiches. We realized then that we did not have a frying pan, so Sasha improvised. He is good at that.

So after that, I uploaded the pictures from my camera to the computer and made a little slide show to show everyone that evening. We were again running late so got there around 8pm. The awards had already happened and the karaoke guy was back, and people were singing. We stayed until the end this time, and showed everyone the pictures. Us singing Kiss - Rock and Roll All Night!
We sang two songs this evening as people were asking us to sing. We sang Kiss: Rock and Roll all Night and party every day and an INXS song: Suicide Blonde. The Kiss song was good, the INXS song, I don’t think many people know INXS even though they were on TV looking for a new singer last summer. Laura and Sasha after the sing
We met more people that evening (it was standing room only) and I got a few more pictures. By the time we left that evening, it had stopped raining. We got a fire started and had toasted marshmallows (finally!) Sasha is the cook in the family but I make the best toasted marshmallows. Even thought the wood was wet, Sasha was able to start the fire with a little extra help from gasoline (kids, don’t try this at home and Mom don’t be scared, he only singe his knuckles.) We had run out of diesel.

We stayed up until around midnight and then I went to bed. Sasha stayed up longer watching the fire. He has stated before, we have a gas fireplace at home, so when we are camping, he wants a real fire.

We awoke on Sunday without the rain, but no sun. It had rained during the night but at least it seemed as though it would dry out. We had breakfast at the campground dining hall, the Tall Pines people made it. Breakfast was quite nice, eggs and bacon and pancakes. We sat with Skip and Linda and their granddaughter and friend. Skip and Linda have so many tales; they have traveled the world in a sailboat and now with the camper. By the time we had finished breakfast, a lot of people had already cleared out of the campground and it was not even 11 am. I think quite a few of these guys are early risers, not like Sasha and I, would get up late and stay up even later.

Sasha and I took a while getting out of there: Sasha washed down the camper, organized the trailer and other things while I write for this and for my newsletter that I do for work. I went down to the bay and saw the ducks and gave them some food. They are so funny, waddling as fast as they can to get the food, and then pick it up so fast I would think they would get sick. And then they quack at me to get them some more.

I saw Dick and Mary Jane over by the beach and we talked a bit too. While we were talking the sun came up and it started to get warm. It made sense to get out of the shade and get into the sun, so I went back over to where Sasha was working on the truck. He did the dump while I resized all of the pictures for the web. (The pictures are taken at a size 2048x1500 pixels and I get them down to 300x200 so that they can go in the website without too much trouble.) Once Sasha had done the dump, then we lined up the truck to hitch it to the trailer. After that, Sasha cleaned up and we headed out on the road.

I was having some problems with my cell phone, so I waited to make call backs till later, when we had bars on the cell and the internet. I am still having problems with the internet, as it keeps coming in and out. Skip told me about Verizon mobile office and I am going to research it this week and next. If it really does all that I hope, I will get rid of the T-Mobile card and go with Verizon. I just hope I don’t have to switch my new phone.

These are all the photos that we have of the trip. If you click on them, they will show up as the full resolution.
Signing off until the next trip

Laura-N-Sasha.com

Laura and Sasha's Excellent Adventure

2006-05-12T21:16:00.000-04:00

A Semi-log of the travels, but please check the travel logs for full time story-telling and interesting tidbits of information. Please scroll up to see everything.

Hi all, we are going on a most excellent adventure: with our new Snowriver camper and our Ford SuperDuty F-350 truck. We have all ready packed and are now ready to get on the road.

Please check back often, as we plan (we will see of course) to:

upload pictures and our travel log on the other pages.

This is a log of the Atlanta Trip for a Motorcycle for Laura.

We now have a new post called: Tall Pines - going on the road in April 2006 for a truck camper rally.

Laura and Sasha Jevtich, Travelers Extraordinary

If you would like to know more about how you can get a website like this one, please go to my webmistress' website at: www.SalesThroughTechnology.com