It feels so good to be back in Oregon!

But, I can't say it is just perfect because it isn't the same living in the trailer as it was traveling in the trailer.  When we traveled, I was busy going on hikes and seeing the sights.  But now, we have not been hiking and I have seen the sights around here that I have wanted to see.  I find something every day that keeps me busy, but I don't like not having a real house to have my grandkids and kids visit.  With the predicted COVID-19 virus getting worse after the holidays and the southern states having record cases, we have decided it would be best to postpone our plans to travel right after Christmas.  So the decision for right now is to begin looking for a house and wait it out until next year to begin the travels again.  I have found a few houses online and we have been doing drive-bys.  We have toured a couple.  Right now, with it being winter, fewer homes are on the market and add on the virus and things are pretty slim in the home buying business.  It is not a rush, but I know I can't just live in the trailer if we are not traveling. 

The 6th of November is Joshua's birthday.  We drove to Salem and took the 4 of them to lunch.  Just after that, the governor closed restaurants back down a second time because of the virus.

The next day was an online play the Gabe was in.  He tried out online, did a call back and was selected for the part of Peter a mute boy.  Even though he didn't have lines, he had hard work to learn to express himself without words.  The acting company that does these plays really did a good job of getting it online instead of onstage.  I went online to watch the performance.

And then came Josiah's birthday on the 12th.  He had a couple of friends from school over and there was a drive-by for family and friends to wish him a Happy Birthday.

His parents gave him a fishing trip on a boat.They had to go away overnight to be there at the crack of dawn when the boat left. So I got  to spend the night at their house with the girls. We celebrated with a breakfast out and piles of pancakes. 

We had sad news that my Uncle Dale passed away. He was like a brother to my Mom and my Dad.  He was such a special uncle.  Each of my sisters and I think he thought we were more special to him that the other.  How does a person do this? He had pet names for each of us and we didn't really notice that until the past few years. Even after Aunt Carlene died, he continued to write Christmas cards to us.  I loved him. He will be so missed!

The last of the fall colors was beautiful and I saw some gorgeous sunrises from my back window.

I love it that the grandkids know how much I love certain things.  Hearts, bugs, butterflies, birds, chipmunks...and rainbows.  One day I received a phone call with an excited voice telling me to "look outside 'really quick'.  Its a double rainbow!"  I ran outside with my camera and captured a few shots as they drove in to watch it with me.

Just across the road is an historical house and a tree called a pointing tree.  In the settling days of Oregon, Indians used these kinds of trees to point out directions to certain things.  

All spring and summer, we were still able to visit my parents outside.  We took our own food and didn't go inside the house since March.  Well, with typical winter weather coming on, my Dad closed in the back porch.  They have a little gas fireplace out there already.  He made sure there is plenty of ventilation and we are still able to sit a ways away and visit with them.

The hope was that they could still have the traditional Thanksgiving dinner out there.  Well as time clicked on, my kids said no way did they want to risk exposing everyone in that area.  They each decided to have their own dinners at their own homes.  And so it was just 6 of us spaced out at two 8ft tables.  My Mom cooked the whole meal and my Dad wheeled it out to us.  Each of us had our own serving bowls for our very own private dinners.  Afterwards, we took home whatever was leftover in those bowls and we threw our plates and plasticware in the trash.  Not traditional and I hope we don't have to repeat it, but it was still nice to have a tiny resemblance to normal.

Two days later, the same six of us met up again at the same spaced out tables and celebrated Mom's birthday.  Cyndi had a special video message for her from friends and family.

And that brings us to December.  Vaccines are on the way, but it looks like Christmas will look like Thanksgiving out there.  The grandkids and great-grandkids are all seeing Grandma and Grandpa at a distance, all on different days.  

And suddenly we were on our way back to Oregon! 

From New Hampshire we drove through Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut to the tip of Pennsylvania. We stayed there for three days. One of those days, we hopped the border into New Jersey and saw what is called High Point.  It is a high tower that you can see all three states from, but it was closed because of Covid, so we just enjoyed the view from the ground.

We took a little hike to see another falls, of course, right?

Raymondskill Falls

We headed across Pennsylvania to Ohio.  The drive was incredible!  The farms, the small towns, and the COLORS!  Wow!  We hit it right at peak!

When we first headed into New England we had to cancel our plans to stay in Ohio because it had made the list of high level Covid numbers.  If we stayed there longer than 24 hours, we would have had to quarantined14 days after arriving into New York.  So instead, we drove on through to Pennsylvania. Well, since we were driving back and had to pass through Ohio, I decided we should go ahead and see the falls that I had scheduled before.  I am so glad we did.  It was beautiful.  The hike along the creek was even better.

Brandywine Falls

It ends up that one of my favorite shots of the trip so far was along the little creek to the falls.

And on to Indiana.  Before Covid, my plan was to see one of my high school best friends.  Carrie Lamm.  She was a candle lighter in my wedding.  Well, after much discussion between Carrie and me, we decided to go ahead with the get together, as long as we kept our distance and stayed outside and wore our masks.  It was so, so good! to see her again.  

Years ago, John played a computer game online with Dennis.  They were on a team that included Tim and Carla from Kokomo.  John gave Tim a call and the two of them met up.  It was pretty fun for them to meet up in person after all those online years when you only knew a person by their voice.

When we have to stop for gas, we try to find a truck stop station so that we don't have to worry about getting that trailer in a tight spot. This one day, when we parked there were only a couple of semi trucks there when we went inside for some food.  I just cracked me up to see this when we came back out.

We left Indiana, drove through Illinois to St. Louis.  I figured since we were so close, we might as well take a look at the Gateway Arch.  I am no longer surprised that I am surprised to be awed by these sights. 

The arch is situated in a park with a beautiful reflecting pond.

We stayed in St. Charles.  I had no idea it was anymore than an RV park.  Well, it was a nice RV park on a bike path that went right into the little town of St. Charles.  What a well kept secret it is!  An old old town that was so relaxing to spend time in.

Originally, our plan was to go right through Iowa to Nebraska, but last July our first CASS student, Polo, who now lives in Kansas, lost his wife Sylvia to Covid.  She was a CASS student also.  They were married here in the states and most recently were pastoring a church in Topeka.  We were going to see them on our trip in the spring, but decided that now was the time to see him.  Polo and his 4 children all had Covid, but very mild symptoms.  So I decided to take a little detour to Topeka and give him a hug.

Two months after we left Oregon, Eileen and Dan left Phoenix.  I met her when Jessi was in college.  Their daughter Julie was Jessi's room-mate and became Jessi's best friend.  They were Jessi's family away from home.  Anyway, we text off and on, but didn't give much in the way of details of our travel plans.  But when she saw my picture of the arch, she mentioned they would see it the following day.  One thing led to another and we realized that we were going to pass each other!  They made a little detour and met us in our camp just 10 minutes after we drove in!  What a fun coincidence!  They stayed for about 15 minutes and then resumed their travels.

After they left, we met up with Polo.  I could not believe how much his family had grown and how much Sylvia was missing from the picture.  It was a special time and I am so happy that it worked out for us to see them.  Polo is such a sincere enthusiastic Godly man. They are hurting from the loss of Sylvia, but their faith is keeping them going.

Before we left, his daughter gave us this that she had painted at Polo's request.  It made me cry.

And since we were now on the line to Colorado, we made a call to my nephew David and his wife Beth and stayed a night in their driveway. We could not miss a chance to see them since we were so close. Beth made an amazing dinner for us and we had a really fun time talking with them until it was way past David and Meri's bedtime.

We headed north to Scottsdale, Nebraska.

When I mapped out the trip, I did a search to find waterfalls, hikes, natural wonders, lakes, rivers, that sort of thing to see.  Scottsbluff was one of the things that popped up for a visit.  There was not much information on it, but I decided to give it a shot.  I am so glad I did!  It was well worth the miles to get there.  Right on the Oregon Trail and beautiful!

One of the things that was there to see, was one of those 'things you don't know, until you know things'.  

CARHENGE

OK, so not worth the miles to see it, but now we know. John didn't even get out of the truck, it was that good.

Sugarbeet trucks were everywhere, but I never saw a field of them growing.  They even have a processing plant there.

We continued on the Oregon Trail into Wyoming.  There are permanent ruts from the wagons that passed through.

As we passed through the Indian Reservation, the scenery was incredible!  I have seen painted hills, we have Mitchel right in Oregon, but these were even better, I think.  So many colors!

We arrived in Jackson to spend time in the Tetons.  Actually, we stayed over the border in Idaho because all of the parks near the Tetons and Yellowstone were already closed for the winter.  It was an hour drive each day to see all the areas of the Tetons. Yellowstone was about 2 hours just to the entrance, so we decided, since we have been there already, that we would skip it on this trip.

I was still on a moose hunt.  We hit the roads each day to see the sights, always with a moose in mind.

We found a huge herd of bison.

The first day we were in the Tetons, the clouds barely lifted.  The second day we had a really great view of them.

The falls colors were still going on in the Tetons, just a different shade of beautiful from the colors of New England.

Well, the weather report did not look good.  For the Tetons or for the drive back to Oregon.  It was cold and super windy.  The forecast said we were going to get -3 below!  Since it was not going to work out to spend time in Yellowstone this trip and we had mostly done the things I planned on seeing in the Tetons, we made the decision to cut our week short and head on for Oregon before we got snowed in.  Suddenly, being so close to home, all I could think of doing was getting home.  I was reminded of how it was when we rode our horses when I was a girl.  We would take off for a day long ride, each of us with our own horse and our dog Brownie.  Off we would go, lunches packed.  We rode to the Sandy River, had lunch, played in the river and finally headed for home.  The closer we got to home, the harder it was to hold our horses back.  We didn't need to steer them, they knew the way and they just wanted to be there.  So it was with me, it was only a two day drive from home.  Suddenly, I was not interested in another hike, another waterfall, another lake and pretty mountain.  It was about to get really cold and snowy and I wanted to assure that I was going to get home!

We decided to spend the last day once again hunting for a moose and I still wanted to get some shots of the famous barns on Mormon Row.

Finding the barns was not a problem. 

 The moose, however, remained elusive.  We drove and drove.  At one point, we saw some cars pulled over, we joined them.  A woman walking past the truck told me that somebody had spotted a bear.  Well, I really wanted to see a bear too, so we joined in on the wait.  There were so many people lined up, with cameras on tripods and huge lenses!  After a while of waiting, we decided that even if a bear did pop out of the woods, it was going to be a long ways away, if we saw it at all.  So we drove off.  About two hours later, we came back past that same spot and those same cameras with those huge lenses were still there!!!  A ranger was directing traffic for the huge crowd that had joined in and the bear has still not made an appearance. What a waste of time! 

We did spot some pronghorns and got real close and personal with some deer on our drive.

While we drove around those 4 days, we discovered a perfect spot that a moose or two just had to frequent.  We timed it to be later in the evening, we pulled up with snacks and prepared to wait it out.  It was then I realized, finding this moose was not just for me.  He was just as anxious to see one as I was, maybe even more.  Maybe he just really wanted to find one for me, I don't know.  

Anyway, we waited and waited until it was past sundown.  We decided to give it up and head back to our camp.  As we pulled away and rounded the first corner, there was a car pulled over.  It was a moose!  Not only a moose, but a mama and her cub!!!  I could not believe it.   I took the shots and just sat back and enjoyed the show. 

 What a way to end our trip!

We left the fall colors of the Tetons and drove through a little snow.  Originally we had planned on seeing the Sawtooth Mountains and stopping to see friends in Boise and spending a few days with family in the Ontario area.  Instead, we parked our trailer in front of Mary and Jim's place and didn't even unhook it.  We all met up with Danny and Tamie and Carrie for dinner (I messed up and forgot to take a photos! Dan sent me a selfie, I am still waiting for one of Mary and Jim!) We went to sleep and got up before the sun and headed for home! 

And then the sight I had been waiting to see for 3 months!

Mt Hood

What a welcoming sight!

And even the Stonehenge replica looked better to me than the Carhenge we had just seen.

We told Jessi we were going to be home a week early, but we waited to surprise the kids.  She picked Josiah up from school and came to the park to 'check out where we would be staying'.  When he saw us, the look on his face was exactly what I was hoping for.

We were not there in time to pick Josiah up from school, but we were there in time for the girls.  Each of them could not put it together what they were seeing when they got in the car. They both took double takes and suddenly got it.  

The hugs were amazing!

The plan was that when we came home, we have an apartment where we store our things.  We set up the bed and I have a few things unpacked to get us by when we came home.  The bedrooms are floor to ceiling boxes, the bed is in the living room, along with two sofas and side chairs and the dining room has two tables and sets of chairs piled up.  But we are so comfortable in the trailer we decided it would be best to just get an RV park and not have to move our things out of the trailer and then winterize it while we are home for the holidays.

Our park is on the Sandy River.

Josiah didn't waste a second.  He brought his pole and the third cast in he caught a fish!

It is been so good being home.  Catching up with the kids, we just picked up where we left off.  

We made it home in time for fall colors!!!

We had a sleep-over!

Yes, Home is Where You Hang Your Heart.