Lessons Learned on Down the Road

*Personal guided tour of the Olympic Training center by David’s college roommate made it a special tour and then
*Dinner with college roommate at a great Greek restaurant Jake and Tellys in old town Colorado Springs made for a good time. Oompa
*Two bunny rabbits playing outside The Rectangle brings smiles…one could tell they were great buddies
*The grandeur of Air Force Academy holds one breathless. The chapel next June will be closed for 4 years as they disassemble and rebuild it. One can only hope they recapture its spectacular glory.
*Trying to grow herbs in The Rectangle is anew adventure. A $10 galvanized three “bucket” pots hold the basil, mint and rosemary. OK so the Rosemary has already died and the new one planted is not doing well after a week…brown thumb seems to be lurking
*Took nice trolley tour of Boise and discovered a lot of homes of interest, capital building and cultural neighborhoods like the Basque population. The sliced lamb sandwich and bean soup we had for lunch made us ask about the Basque flavors. We bought smoked paprika to add to onions, red bell pepper, cracked black pepper, and salt to make a yummy chicken.
*Blue boxes like small sheds on rollers in the fields are bee hives. Now if they would only put signs in the fields to let us know what they are growing…please?
*Going to church and being invited to breakfast by the senior group was nice (of course we fit into that group——When did we exactly get into that group??)
*Forest fires and lack of rain were the big topics at breakfast.
*Viola is 86 and her mobile home place in the RV park is beautifully maintained. She will only be there a few more weeks as her children think she should no longer live alone, so her daughter has build her a room in her house and she is moving in with them. Viola’s hands are bent with arthritis, she has brittle bones from osteoporosis but at 6am she is outside tending her yard, watering the grass, loving the flowers to bloom and sweeping everything spotless. She wants to stay in her home but as she told us “those darn kids think I am too old to live alone”. Her flowers were a joy to see every morning as I read my paper on line. I am sure she will make sure flowers bloom wherever she is planted.
*Watermelon from farmers market that people told us was from an area that made the melons special and wonderful..David stood in line a while to buy the melon and paid $7.00 (this the most he has EVER paid for a small melon but after standing in line for so long he paid the price) then….we stopped at Walmart to get something and they had melons from that same area for $4.00 but we felt good we had helped Terry a small farm grower.
*We are Syrah people, at least at the wineries we visited in Pasco WA area. After three a day for 6 days we have a few bottles in The Rectangle. OK not all Syrah but mostly.
*Walla Walla is a nice college (three there) and agricultural area town. visited 3 wineries and came back to The Rectangle with 3 reds. According to the pourers in the tasting rooms,  One of the tree colleges there Whitman University a liberal arts school is noted for teaching a lot about “the arts” but not getting anyone ready for a job. Hmmm sounds about right and not just at Whitman.

2017 Lessons Learned First Week

Lessons Learned Living in a Rectangle

*We are now one week into our trip starting off with a couple of days in the Cap Rock Canyon Texas State park and long the way…
*Small museums are still a thing Blue Spruce museum was unfortunately closed
*Dirt devils dance on the fields being turned for the next crop
*Red Earth rises like smoke behind the tractors turning the earth
*Corn and cotton are in the fields
*Turkey Tx is the home of Bob Wills
*Prairie dogs are endlessly entertaining
*Bison at your Rectangle door will keep you inside….they do not move quickly and they are REALLY big
*Our trusty truck LilRed honked? then honked again? someone trying to get into it? No, just a woodpecker on LilRed pecking at the windshield wiper…guess bugs were there? But LilRed was “crying out” and I had to make woodpecker move on. It was a very large orange headed one but no-one or thing will I allow to hurt LilRed our trusty companion
*If you are in Cap Rock Canyon State park try and get the camping spot 35…prefect view of the canyon in the distance, prairie dogs up close and Bison very close too. No other spot has this view
*Moving on and the overnight at the next “RV Park” was shall we say was OK for a pull in and sleep, not much more in Clayton, New Mexico. The park was very old and when you are woken in the middle of the night with the electricity going off and on because luckily you always use a serge protector we laughed and finally got up at 3am to have coffee thanks to our generator and see the sun rise.
*BUT Clayton does have a very good Dairy Queen! and then David says he has spent the night in Clayton before with a group of bikers…who knew? (things wives learn)
*Learned that when going down the road and you stop to have a bite to eat and you see liquid on the floor it is not always water or oil and looking up and down inside and out for where it might be coming from …maybe from the road; the tires; or the slide out into The Rectangle? Then you taste the liquid and find it is very sticky, very sweet…rule out water or oil…follow the stream to the pantry to find a jar of peach jam leaking onto the floor…hmmm it is usually something simple.
*Road construction continues to be everywhere. More lessons to come.

2017 Trip

It is now time to leave for a few months on our 2017 trip Living in a Rectangle. The Rectangle has inspection and tags renewed and water tank sanitized. The loading is beginning and on Saturday, July 8, 2017 we are off to Texas Cap Rock State Park for the first of many nights Living in a Rectangle. It is always fun and love seeing our country along the road. Will be going into Canada this trip so passports are packed. Now to load up knowing if we forget anything there is always stores to explore too.