A Great Weekend!

We had such a wonderful time with our daughter Stephanie and son in law Randy this weekend in Wilsonville, OR.  

We enjoyed our tour of the Domaine Drouhin Winery, which was about 45 minutes from our kid's apartment and the views were unbelievable, as you can see below. We enjoyed some wonderful Chardonnay and Pinot Noirs, and even though Tracy doesn't normally drink alcohol, she enjoyed a few sips as well. 

An excellent Chardonnay

Our view

Steph and Randy

Enjoying some vino and beautiful weather

Cold in here

Wouldn't mind having one of these at home

Our group minus the photographer

Our surroundings in Oregon were so different from the desert we left and I couldn't stop taking pictures of the beautiful green trees and colorful plants.  

Our flights were on time and smooth and I was even able to take advantage of my US Airways Preferred Status to bring some wine home at no extra charge.

So we are back in the swing of things and it is great to be starting my week off on Tuesday rather than Monday. Thanks for the visit and I hope that your weekend was great as well!

Wilsonville, Oregon!

Well we are in beautiful Wilsonville today and the weather couldn't be better. We are here to celebrate our oldest daughter Stephanie's 24th Birthday today and of course Mother's Day tomorrow.

We are headed to a winery tour this morning and a BBQ this afternoon, so it will be a fun day for sure.

Tracy's parents were supposed to join us, but her Mom had to have an emergency appendectomy on Thursday, so we are sad that they are not with us this weekend. Please keep Pat in your prayers for a complete recovery.

We are enjoying our $50 per night room at the Quality Inn in Wilsonville. I was a little concerned with the 2.5 star rating on Hotwire, but the reviews were good and I am glad that we booked it.

Well back to the heat of AZ on Monday, but I wanted to wish all you Moms a wonderful Mother's Day and thanks for all that you do for all of us!

Amazon Gift Card!

Tracy and I were given a $100 Amazon Gift Card for Christmas from her cousin, which was both unexpected and much appreciated. 

Tracy doesn't do much on-line shopping and had never actually visited Amazon. I have spend a lot of time on Amazon and was looking forward to identifying and buying something using this gift card.  

Well we kind of forgot that we had the card until about a week ago when Tracy said that she really didn't need or want anything from Amazon, so if I had something I wanted, I should use the card.  

Well she certainly didn't have to ask me twice, I was happy to do some online shopping and it didn't take me long to find some things for our RV that I have been wanting for sometime.  

I was amazed how quickly I could spend the $100 and how few items I actually bought.  I am always happy to get free shipping, which I did with these items, since it was more than $50.  Unfortunately, part of the order requires that some work be done, like installing the Cyclone Vent and waxing our rig, but that is all part of the fun.  

Hope you are all having some fun and thanks for stopping by for a visit!

This will wait until its cooler!

Nice cover, but expensive!

Didn't realize that I needed two of these, so this is the second one.

I Stand Corrected!

Well the weather in Prescott was wonderful and our space was settled in the pines with a quick walk down to the lake, so we were happy. 

We arrived about 3:00pm and two of the rigs in our group had already arrived, so it was nice to meet them. 

This is the part where I stand corrected.  Tracy was reviewing the blog and noticed that I said that we were going to be boondocking for the first time.  Tracy said that we were not boondocking because we were staying in a campground, we were dry camping.  

I couldn't argue with her because I knew she was right and Mike, of Mello Mike's RV & Off-Road Adventures acutally confirmed what she was saying in his recent blog post about boondocking. 

Iris did great pulling the hills up to Prescott with the tin can in tow, it was like we were not towing anything and we were able to maintain 55mph even on the toughest grades.

The batteries and water lasted all weekend long and we both were able to even get a quick shower.  The only problem that we encountered was that the pilot light blew out on the refrigerator and we didn't notice the check light until the next morning, so all of our food was at 70 degrees when we got up Saturday morning and we had to throw it all out.  Luckily, there was a WalMart close by our campgound, so we were able to get replacements easily. Now Tracy and I look at that light everytime we walk by the refrigerator.

Here are some pictures from our time at Lynx Lake, it really is a wonderful campground and is an easy ride up from the Valley. 

View from our site

Lynx Lake...Beautiful!

Squirrels in the trees

Our site

Bike race in Prescott...25 miles!

Biking Bar?

Great weekend

We did have a great weekend and it was so nice to get to the cooler weather, it was over 100 here in Phoenix today.  Thanks for the visit, have a great week and safe travels!        

On The Road Again!

Things are starting to heat up here in Arizona, so it is now necessary to go farther away when wanting to camp and escape the heat.

We have reservations at Lynx Lake in Prescott AZ this weekend with three other couples who will be meeting us up there tomorrow.  Lynx Lake has no hookups, so we will be boondocking this weekend for the very first time, wish us luck! 

I know that many of you reading this boondock often, so I won't whine too much, but this weekend should be very interesting with no electricity and only limited water for showers (hey everyone needs some alone time).  

We don't know two of the couples we are going with, so we hope to establish some new friendships over this weekend, while enjoying the cooler weather in Prescott.  

We will be pulling our Suzuki Sidekick for the first distance trip, so that we can explore the area once we arrive.  I will let you all know how that works out when we get back.  

So we are excitedly packing for what we hope will be a great weekend and hope to hit the road around noon tomorrow, as long as Tracy can sneak away from work.  

I noticed that we picked up our 80th follower, but I don't see any information for them, so I can't welcome them aboard by name.  I am presuming that they joined anonymously, but I may be wrong. Anyway, thanks for joining our adventure and thanks to all of you for stopping by for a visit.  I hope your weekend is safe and enjoyable!

In The Paper...Update!

Thanks for all of the positive comments regarding my FIL's article about his and Sarah's Spring Break trip to Hong Kong.  I apologize that I could not provide a link to the article in the AZ Republic as several of you requested and it is still not available as of today.  

I just received an email that USA Today Online picked up the article and although it doesn't have the nice picture like the AZ Republic, it does have the text. So for those who are interested, here is the link and enjoy!

USA Today Article.

Thanks for stopping by and have a safe and enjoyable week!

In The Paper!

Tracy was so excited to see today's AZ Republic newspaper. She quickly went to the Travel section and searched the pages. She was so excited when she found the article that her Dad had written about his recent adventures over Spring Break with our daughter Sarah in Hong Kong!

I had no idea that he had submitted an article, so I was sure surprised when I saw it. He did a great job capturing the wonderful time they had together. Papa, as our daughters call him is a pretty cool guy and they sure enjoy spending time with their grandparents. I sure hope Tracy and I are as cool for our grand kids when we are blessed to have them.

Hope your weekend is going great and thanks for the visit!