Happy New Year! 

We're basking in the sunshine in Hope, Arizona awaiting New Year's festivities at Ramblin' Roads RV Park. They only go from 7 to 10, probably because this is a 55+ park!

This little community between Quartzite and Wickenburg is where we're hanging our hats for the winter. We returned yesterday from a Christmas trip to Vancouver where we filled up on grandkid love and are back to blue skies once again. 

We've made a dramatic change in our life style this year, selling our home of 25+ years, moving into our 5th wheel trailer and living life “at Large” for an as-yet-to-be determined period of time. 

We're looking forward to seeing the goodness of the Lord in 2014 and wish you and yours all the best.

Our campsite on Beyond Hope Road! What's beyond hope? The golf course!

 Trying to figure out how to take our picture

 Beautiful skies

 Fun in our ATV

 They grow cotton around here (Pima County Arizona)

 Lemons are almost ready to pick

Loved being with our grandsons.

RV life: Random odd thing

Our old trailer had a digital clock on the microwave as well as a"round-time" clock mounted in the living room. Our new trailer only has the clock on the microwave which is fine, but small and hard to see from the couch located down and across from it and, of course, impossible to see from the recliners beside it and directly across the the couch, so we felt the need for a clock. Where does one go to get a wall clock if Bi-Mart isn't handy like at home? Wal-Mart of course.

Wal-Mart is every RVer's go-to store.
     Casserole pans - I somehow gave mine all away, no problem. They have glass, ceramic, aluminum
     Fruits, veggies, ice cream, milk, yogurt - you bet.
     RV TP - just believe me on this one - they've got it.
     Vitamins? Yep.
     Soap or soup, you can count on Wal-Mart.
In RV "paradise" Wal-Mart is the only place you're likely to see children - everyone, everyplace else is over 55. (Don't get me started on Wal-Martians!)

Anyway, we went to Wal-Mart and found a very nice clock, 1 AA battery, not included.

Supplied the battery (#1), hung it up, and it worked fine for about 36 hours then slowed considerably. It took a while to register that the time was wrong and then to determine the solution.

Troubleshooting, I changed the battery (#2). Clock worked fine for about 15 hours then slowed again.

Troubleshooting again,  (advice of husband - take it back, looks good but just a piece of junk, but it was just before Thanksgiving and I'd already stood in endless lines there twice) I changed the battery again (#3) but used one that was just lying loose in the box of batteries, not matching the two previous batteries. Inadvertently I dropped the clock but was able to catch it before it hit the floor but it did bounce lightly off Dick's head. It must be the combination - that 3rd battery, the head bonk, the threat of return (back to China with you, clock!) but the clock is ticking away!

A solution to every problem! We just used Dick's head!

Fun in the sun on the RZR

So the ATV we ended up getting is a 2010 Polaris Ranger RZR:

We went on what's called a Poker Ride today. Everyone pitched in $5, spun a wheel and got the first of 5 card values at the community hall at Ramblin' Roads RV Resort here in Hope, Arizona. We took off at 10:30, all bundled up because it was chilly and the air conditioner works full time on these rigs! We stopped three more times, spun the wheel and then one more spin, 35 miles and 3 hours later. Dick ended up with three 9's which was the highest hand and he won $115 which I think he should use for helmets for us for the next time. (warmer and safer)

We saw some beautiful scenery but with all the bouncing around didn't get too many pictures. We're going to retrace our steps another time.

I think we drove all over the first mountain and in the gulley behind it. Possibly we were up on the other side of the tall mountain. It was awesome. The desert has so much variety. We were on a trail the whole time on both sides of highway 60. Fun, fun, fun.

 



We're back in the lad of saguaro cactus, rugged rocky hills and wide open desert.



We arrived in Hope, between Quartzite and Wickenberg, Arizona, on Highway 60 yesterday. 


We signed in to Roamin' Roads RV Resort, a lovely oasis with palm trees, cactus, friendly people and room to roam over the surrounding desert. Each of the parks around here has an ATV club as does the church we went to.

 

Somebody cleaned up the sign, at least for the internet. I was ready to get my paints out!

In addition to the ATV group, the Little Church of Hope immediately adopted Dick into their shooting club when he told someone that he had a spotting scope. We'd worn jeans to church this morning and fit right in. The pastor was wearing a western cut jacket and the song leader removed his cowboy hat for prayer but stuck it on again as he led worship. The church members met at a local restaurant after service and we joined them for breakfast. We'll probably go back tonight because they're having a hamburger feed after communion. Not cooking is important to me. The lady across the table at breakfast was named Pat Bergstrom which took me back to our first service at The Country Church where we were greeted by Reuben and Marilyn who are probably distant cousins.

In order to better fit in with the population of the area we've been looking at side x sides. Everybody else has at least one ATV parked in front of their trailer and we need to fit it!

We both like this one:One of these would do just as well!

We left Reno this morning heading east towards Fernley and then south past Fallon, beside Walker Lake with a 20 mile beach and the Paiute Reservation
 
and arrived at Whiskey Flats RV Park in Hawthorne, Nevada, America's Patriotic Home. Who knew.

Turns out it's the home of what was once the largest Army depot in the US of A. We stopped by an Ordinance Museum - no, I stand corrected - Ordnance Museum which housed a collection of mines, bombs, missiles, shells and everything else that can blow up.




This park is a nice place to stay. Easy in and out, quiet (not much traffic here) but sure filled up fast with other rvers in the late afternoon as it's on the main drag (95) from Reno to Las Vegas. Nevada is starkly beautiful and mostly uninhabited and uninhabitable.

This morning Dick really had problems with his back seizing up on him. We hooked up - with our new Jayco it is so easy to do, for which I'm really thankful, but delayed leaving until he could relax. Finally we left and prayed our way through Reno. His back finally relaxed about an hour down the road somewhere south of Fernley. I'm really just documenting this to see if we can get an idea of what causes the back problems. It wasn't cold this morning - in the fifties. Just wondering if it is tension and stress related. The last time he had problems was when we left Wilsonville. Oh, well. Felt fortunate after meeting a couple who pulled in across from us. His wife has some signs of short term memory loss and he was talking about dementia and Alzheimer's. That's not for us. We're challenging traditional ideas about aging.

Change is good and it's good for me!

 ... to paraphrase one of our favorite pastors. We've made so many changes in the past few months that Change has become the new normal!

In addition to big changes like selling our home, ridding ourselves of the accumulation of almost 44 years of marital bliss, and moving into our 5th wheel trailer, we've been living with little changes like a new computer and a new home page, two new televisions and how to program them for where we are currently, two new phones, address corrections, changes, & considerations like mailing address (Lisa's in Vancouver), Oregon address so we don't have to reregister the truck (brother John's in Maupin) as well as where did we put the _________ (fill in the blank). We need a vacation!

We've been staying at Gold Ranch RV Park in Verdi, Nevada on the Nevada/California border for about a week, visiting our son Michael. We took yet one more donation trip to the Goodwill yesterday and are finally feeling like we have given away about everything we need to, but now we have to replace that we shouldn't have gotten rid of, like the cheese grater and the microwave bowls.

We've planned our itinerary, for the third and possibly final time.

We'll leave Reno on Wednesday because we have to wait for a birthday present from Joyce Taylor to be delivered to Michael's on Tuesday and head for
   Whiskey Flats RV Park in Hawthorne NV  http://whiskeyflats.net/

   Bailey Hot Springs RV Park in Beatty NV http://baileyshotsprings.com/Home_Page.html (check out the Mudder pictures and the buffalo)
   Blake Ranch east of Kingman AZ http://www.blakeranchrv.com/
   and
   Ramblin' Roads RV Park in Hope AZ http://www.ramblinroads.com/

We hope to stay in Hope for a couple of months. We'll keep you posted. The park in Hope adjoins BLM land with lots of places to ride quads so Dick really has his hopes up!

Wilsonville on Wednesday

A while ago a lady told us that the best place to meet people was in the laundry and we just proved it to be true.
Dick and I were stuffing our stuff in washers when this gal came in with a Harley t-shirt on and spiky hair. One thing led to another. A few little dropped comments by us both and we'd spotted another Christian.
They'd recently moved back to the Portland area from Redding CA. Her husband races Harleys at the PIR (thus the t-shirt) and has been looking for a job in the health engineering field but was having trouble, mostly because of his age. We shared Todd Taylor's testimony about getting his dream job, the words he'd been given going in to the interviews about being a protector, being called to the job and writing the book.
She was excited and told us that they had been involved in Bill Johnson's church in Redding. I mentioned that I'd taught a couple of his books in my Bible study a few years back, When Heaven Invades Earth for one. She shared some miracles she'd witnessed and heard about like the little girl whose parents were signing organ donation forms when she opened her eyes on the operating table and said "hi" and we shared a few that we'd heard about, like my nephew-in-law praying for the Cambodian man who died in a car accident who came back to life.
What a great way to do the laundry! God is good and he's good to us.

High noon October 25, 2013 we said goodbye to our home on Jackson Road in Canby, Oregon.

When we moved there in 1987 we had two children, a dog, a cat, a sizeable herd of cattle and several trailer loads of home furnishings. We were excited about the prospect of 28 acres that was all ours. We spent any number of Sunday afternoons walking the property lines and thanking the Lord for blessing us beyond our wildest dreams.

Here's an aerial view of our place taken some time in the 90s. The white spots are cattle and Dick can tell you their names, of course. The back pasture, about 12 acres or so is just barely shown at the top. The changes we made in 25+ years are pretty incredible. Fences have been moved, buildings have been torn down, added on to expanded and updated, trees have grown, been removed, fallen over.

We asked the Lord for a scripture before we got too far into this whole move thing, because we sure didn't want to do something ahead of His timing and He gave us Isaiah 55:12.
                        You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace.
It's not always been easy and sometimes it's been downright overwhelming but time and again in the past four months (really, for most of our lives) the Lord has been faithful and we are truly "going out with joy" and being "led forth in peace."

Now in 2013, to paraphrase Roger Miller, with no phone (land line that is), no pool, no pets, we're King and Queen of the Road! We put our home on the market in late June, traded our 30' Wildcat for a 35' Jayco Eagle, loaded it with the stuff we couldn't part with, and are living life on the road for a few years. Granted, we only made it as far as Wilsonville, about 12 miles, the first night out, but, hey, that's a start.

We're not sure where we're going, when we'll get there or how long we'll stay, what we'll see or what we'll eat, but we're ready. We know God has a plan for our lives and we're excited to see it unfold before us.

We'll keep you posted!