Missouri

We arrived at Angela's sisters house on Monday afternoon and after
getting both the truck and trailer stuck in the mud around the house,
we did finally get it all setup. We didn't feel too bad as Laura
almost got stuck the next day in the same place. Good ole Missouri mud!

We will stay here through the weekend and leave for Houston on Monday.

Sent from Angela's iPhone

The newest addition to our family...

I wanted to share a photo of the newest addition to our family,
Pinkie. She will be making the trip with us, so stay tuned for her
great adventures!

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Our first night

Exhausted but sleeping in our new home in a RV park a couple miles
from our townhome that is now empty.

Frantic week

Just a quick update on the trip status. We have our home rented out
and will be heading out on Saturday. Our first stop is Missouri to
visit with Angela's family. This week has been spent frantically
packing and scheduling work on the house. The movers come tomorrow to
move our furniture into storage so tomorrow night will be our official
first night in the RV. So close...

And the planning continues....

We are in full swing of planning our trip now with only a week to two weeks for departure.  We have spent the last couple of days over at the trailer finishing up some items. 

We have definitely figured out that nothing is easy when it comes to these things. 

Here are a few things that we have finally gotten accomplished:

• When we bought the trailer, it had a king sized bed installed in it.  We decided that we didn't need a king and wanted some of the space back so our plan was to remove the king bed and replace it with our queen.  Matt and Ted spent a day cutting down the plywood frame to accomodate the smaller mattress and we now have a king sized mattress in our basement.  After all the construction, Matt measured the opening from the wall to the dresser to discover that our normal queen sized bed would not fit, it was too long.  Well, the search then began for a queen short to fit.  We finally found one yesterday and proceeded to struggle the thing into the trailer, only to find out that he didn't quite cut enough off the end of it.  So one more thing to do before we leave is to fire up the generator and attack the bed frame again with a saw.
• Matt finished installing the inverter so that we could run 110 volt appliance off of the 4 new batteries that we installed.  Took a couple of days to take apart all the compartments under the trailer to have it wired up right.
• We found plastic tubs for the storage place under the bedroom.  It took the two of us in Wal-Mart armed with a tape measure and a map on graph paper to accomplish the task.  Needless to say, Sunday at Wal-Mart probably not our best idea.
• The storage box up top and the racks are all installed.  The wind surfers and kite boarding equipment now have a home.  Now if we can just find homes for the mountain bikes.

Below are a couple of pictures from the inside and outside of the RV.

Here is a picture from the front of the trailer.  The first slideout you see is the bedroom and the second is the dining table and couch area in the living area.

This is taken from the back of the trailer.  We loved the large rear window.  You can see the kitchen slide out from this angle. 

This is a picture from the bedroom area viewing the back living area and the kitchen.  It took us quite a while to finally find a model that had a really good kitchen in it.  I guess Matt will be expecting me to cook a lot now!!!

This is a picture taken from the back of the RV and looking at the living/dining slide out.

This is of the bedroom in the front of the trailer.  This was taken with the king bed in it so we actually have a bit more room now.  Great closet across the entire front of the RV.

I'll update in the next couple of days with our preliminary itinerary.

The start of the next adventure...

Well as Matt finishes the final miles of a very long trip to Colfax, California (and back) to pick up our RV after an exhaustive (and exhausting) search for the right model. Below is a picture he sent to me as he began the trip back.

Lookout Alaska here we come.... More trip details to follow as we continue to map out our route of 20,000+ miles.

I wanted to share a couple more pictures of Matt and I from the snow storm last week. These are in front of our house on Thursday. Most of Denver was shut down on Thursday as it was still snowing after receiving about 2 feet of snow.
We were a bit stir crazy from working at home (1 day for Matt and 2 days for me) so we decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood. We could definitely tell it was an early season (wet) snow as we had to step around floating ice bergs in all the water.
It finally stopped snowing on Thursday evening and we were able to return to work on Friday without too much trouble on the drive in.

Our first official Snow Storm

Well, we are officially in the middle of our first major snowstorm here in Denver.

This first picture is from about 11am this morning - We had about 8 inches of snow on the back porch.

This was taken about 1:30 this afternoon - I'd say about a foot of snow.

We always enjoy watching Matt's flamingo as it weathers the storm - As of 1:30 this afternoon he was still doing pretty good - Just a little snow covered.

Well, I'd say this evening, he is getting a bit chilly (especially the rear end_. This was taken about 4:30 this evening - I'd guess about 14 inches now.

The forecast is still calling for another 3 - 6 inches tonight and another 2 to 4 inches tomorrow until the storm warning is done at 6pm tomorrow.

We'll keep you updated on the plight of the poor flamingo...

Happy 4th of July

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We had a great long weekend up at the condo.

We had two fantastic nights of fireworks over beautiful Lake Dillon.

On Friday night, we enjoyed a short hike to the marina in Dillon and watched the great show over the amphitheatre. It was a bit crazy and we parked way on the edge of downtown Dillon. Matt planned to try his hand at photographing the fireworks so we choose a quiet bench to watch the display.

On Saturday night, we watched the fireworks that were from the marina in Frisco. As we were driving from the condo to Frisco, we spotted the scenic overlook on I-70 overlooking the lake. We saw a couple of spots and made the U turn at the Frisco exit. We arrived at the overlook about 7pm and found one of the last spots where we could back the truck up and enjoy our dinner of wine & cheese on the tailgate. Have I mentioned that we thought we would be rained out as it rained and was very windy for several hours in the afternoon. Needless to say, after the rain, it was very chilly and by the start of the fireworks at 9:30, we would be bundled up in multiple fleeces, winter hats and several blankets. We had a great view across the lake to the fireworks.



We spent Sunday photographing some columbines near Rainbow Lake in Frisco. I just got a new macro lens to help me photography photos up close (& personal). Here is one unsuspecting model.



Here are some awesome fireworks photos:

Here is a link to more of Matt's photos....

I've spent most of the day creating digital pictures of my 2005 Scrapbook pages. This is actually one album that I've completed so its nice to have a full backup of it electronically so that I can share it.