We have spent the past 3 weeks in Southern California visiting family and, at last, getting some repairs completed on the motor home.

We were in a hail storm while still in Texas, and we’ve had a devil of a time finding someone to repair our damaged roof. We took it to one place that wanted to keep it for over a month, and the cost was twice as much as the insurance company gave us. Kip was finally able to locate a company that was highly recommended, and they actually come to you and complete the installation of what compares to a new roof. We could also stay in the RV while they did it. We made some logistical changes during the process due to the fact that we had to move to a new park in the middle of having the work done. California state parks only allow you to stay 20 days. You have to move out for 2 months. We found a very nice regional park to move to. I highly recommend Bonelli State Park in Pomona and Prado Regional Park in Chino for places to stay in Southern California. Anyway, the roof is repaired, and we’re very happy with how it turned out.

While all this was going on, we managed to see my brother, Billy, and his wife Liz twice and their daughter Erin and her boyfriend, Carlos, once. We were able to spend a bit more time with Gus. He is doing so well. He’s 92 now and in good health. We really enjoyed time spent with everyone.

We are now in Williams, AZ. I’m doing laundry today. We went a couple of days over the usual week between washing, so there’s lots of it.

You’ll never guess what we’re doing tomorrow. We have with us in our storage area the ashes of 5 of our dogs. We’re going to spread them near the Grand Canyon. You can’t dispose of ashes in the canyon. Most of the 5 have been here with us during our travels, so what better place for their final resting place.

I hope this finds all of you who are traveling with us well and happy. It’s been a great trip. We head for Texas on Sunday.

When Kip and I were driving the 20 miles from our campsite to the entrance of Yellowstone National Park, I was telling him that Grandpa Sanderson took my brother, Billy, on a trip to Yellowstone when he was 8 years old. That led me to begin thinking about all the things Grandpa did for his grandchildren.

When I was in high school, he drove me all the way from Murdo to Vermillion, SD, which was almost day’s trip, so I could attend music camp.

One day, when I was out with him fishing in his boat, he gave me a really nice jack knife. I have no idea what happened to it. I lost it somewhere along the line. He gave Billy a knife, too. The next time they were out fishing, Grandpa asked Billy where his knife was. Billy said he left it at home. Grandpa said he guessed it wouldn’t get lost that way.

That day, when Kip and I were on the way to the park, I silently thanked Grandpa for all the things he had done for me while I was growing up. I said, “Grandpa, I hope you can hear my thanks. If you can, please give me some sort of a sign.”

We had a wonderful morning seeing the sites at Yellowstone. While we were sitting at a picnic table eating lunch, Kip looked up and saw a lady walking by. She had a T shirt on that said, “Sanderson Witch Museum.” I was flabbergasted, and I took it as a sign that Grandpa Sanderson had heard my message. I am certain he didn’t believe in witches, but he would have known that seeing the Sanderson name would have gotten my attention.

By the way, the Sanderson Witch Museum displays a history of the Salem, Massachusetts, witch trials. Three Sanderson sisters, no relation to me, were among the accused. I do have a connection to another Salem witch. She was my grandmother several times removed. Her name was Suzanna North, and she was one of the 19 who were hanged. My cousin Bobby Haverberg discovered our link to her when he was researching the Sanderson family ancestry.

In any case, I had a very special grandpa, and I hope he truly felt appreciated.

We have been at a KOA near the park for 2 days and will be staying another 2. We’re trying to reach the place that is going to be doing all the repairs on the RV to see if we can get it in before the 30th. It would sure be nice if we didn’t have to wait that long. Since we’ll be staying at a motel while the work is being done, we would like to get that part behind us.

We really enjoyed our full day at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. They are adjacent to each other, so that made it nice. We were able to see Sherman’s tree, which is the largest Sequoia. It’s at Sequoia NP, and Grant’s tree, which is the 2nd largest, is at King’s Canyon. There is also a tree at King’s Canyon, which is 3000 years old. It’s big, but not as big as the other 2 trees. These giant spectacles have all survived 100s of forest fires. They even have big burn scars.

Counting the coastal redwoods, we have seen a lot of magnificent trees in the past 2 weeks. It has been an awesome experience.

When we arrived at Yosemite and tried to get leveled and all set up, our efforts were thwarted. The jacks wouldn’t go down. Upon investigation, we found a new problem. I noticed all the hydraulic fluid was draining out of one of the jacks. Upon further and further investigation, Kip found that apparently something we ran over jumped up and broke some of the wires, which enabled the fluid to pump out of the top. Kip talked to a technician from the company who makes the jacks and was told not to worry about the jacks falling down en route because they are locked in the up position.

We have an appointment to take the rig into a place in S CA for hail damage repairs and a few other things on the 30th, so we’ll deal with it between times. We’ll level the best we can by running the tires up on blocks when needed. For all of you mechanics out there, I’m probably not explaining this right, but I’m a girl.

The bottom line is that we’re moving onto Sequoia National Park tomorrow.

Like all the other parks, Yosemite is beautiful in its own way. I didn’t get a lot of pictures because the scenes were too big and awesome for my cell phone camera lense. I’m an amateur picture taker at best.

Giant Sequoia trees dwarf even the largest pine and fir trees. The Sequoias can live for over 2000 years. Their trunks can reach over 25 ft thick.

A couple of interesting facts. President Lincoln signed the bill in 1864 that set aside the Mariposa Grove along the scenic Yosemite Valley. In the years following, a fire started in the grove and thus began a 100-year history of protecting the trees from fire. While the intentions were good, it was contributing to the loss of what we cared about so much. Through research and experimentation, it was discovered that fire actually promotes reproduction of the giant trees. It clears away competing firs and cedars and exposes bare mineral soil for the tiny seeds to take root. (This information was taken from the material the Park Rangers handed out.)

There are also many giant rock formations in the park that are totally awesome. It was a gorgeous day, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Now, on to Sequioa National Park. We were there 2 years ago and we want to go back. We’ve got some time to kill before repair time, so why not.

My genius husband figured out the problem with the leveling jacks and the generator. We are good to go. It was an obscure and funny looking breaker that was tripped. Thankfully, no repairman will be needed because everyone is super busy, and nothing was going to happen today.

Good things did happen today, and we couldn’t be more grateful.

Thanks for your friendship and all your supportive words. We learned a lot from this experience. I have no patience, and Kip is tenacious.

We’ve already paid for this spot for tonight, but tomorrow, we will head towards our next destination…Yosemite National Park! Let the good times continue.

We have encountered a couple of problems that will delay the progress of our trip. Since our RV is our home both on the road and wherever we stay for months at a time, we encounter maintenance or repair issues just as we did when we had a house. At least, that’s the way I’m trying to look at it.

We are set up in a nice park near Clearlake, CA. It’s about 100 miles down the coast from Ft. Bragg, where we stayed for 2 nights. Our leveling jacks, which are a very important part of our rig, quit working. Kip talked to a technician on Friday, but they were unable to figure out the problem. As it always seems, problems happen on the weekend. Tomorrow is Monday, so we’ll try to get someone to come out here (there are mobile repairmen), or we will drive somewhere. The generator won’t start, either. Kip is going to try to jump-start it this morning. Maybe we just need a new battery. The good news is we are hooked up to sewer, water, and electricity while we wait.

I’m doing laundry here. They have one washer and one dryer, so it’s slow going. I’m trying not to be a complainer. How am I doing? The dogs are fine, we’re fine. As my good friend Pat reminded me, life has hiccups and snags. You just have to walk through the difficult times and do what you have to do. I’ll keep you all posted. Thanks for traveling along with us. Have a wonderful Sunday.

Except for the part about finding an RV spot for the night, which can be stressful, I love travel days. It’s fun to be where I usually haven’t been before. I love seeing all the different landscapes, and I especially like going through smaller towns. I love looking at the houses and churches and wondering about the people who live there.

We spent 3 days at the Peach Beach RV Park on the Oregon/Washington border. While there, we spent one day driving along Highway 14, which hugs the Columbia River. It was beautiful. We shopped at a fruit stand and bought fresh peaches plus jars of cherry butter, peach butter, rhubarb cherry jam, cherry cobbler in a jar and pickled asparagus. They didn’t have anything with huckleberries in it.

Saturday, we packed up and spent 2 driving days staying just one night at 2 different spots. We drove highway 101 along the beautiful coast of Oregon, and we’re now in Crescent City, CA, in the midst of beautiful redwood trees. Here are a few shots of all the beauty we’ve seen these past few days.

By the way, gas is $6.00 a gallon here. It’s a good thing we got to see all the sights for free!

One of my fondest memories of growing up in Murdo was of the day my cousin Valerie and I played Rawhide. I wrote about that fun-filled day in one of the little Murdo girl stories. I’m republishing it today because it’s Valerie’s birthday, and I hope the memory will make her smile.

Thank you, Val/Lav/Baba for making me smile over and over through the years, and now that we’re 70ish girls, we’ve still got a lot of good stories and laughter ahead of us.

Hafty birthday to one of the sweetest and dearest people I know. I love you bunches.

Here’s the story.

One day, my cousin Valerie and I decided to play Rawhide. Valerie rode Mark’s horse Prince, and I rode Guv out to Aske’s ranch, where they have a bunch of milk cows. We were having so much fun herding those cows all over that we decided to spend the night. I volunteered to ride back to town to get some supplies like food and matches. I already had the saddle off Governor because he was pretty hot from running those cows all over, so I rode bareback. The ride back was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. I really didn’t feel like riding all of the way back to Aske’s, so I went to my cousin Mark’s to play. It didn’t seem like such a big deal until I saw Aunt Ella, (Valerie’s mom), drive up in her pink car. She was looking for Valerie, and when I told her that she was at Aske’s ranch, she said to get in the car. Well, I must have forgotten that Valerie had both saddles, so she just couldn’t have hopped on Prince and ridden back. It would have been hard for me to find my saddle if she’d just left it in the pasture. Valerie wouldn’t have done that, anyway. As it was, I had a little bit of trouble remembering exactly where I left Valerie. When we found her, she didn’t say much except that she was hungry and did I even remember to get food and matches. Thankfully, Aunt Ella didn’t hear the part about the matches.

We decided we weren’t going to play Rawhide anymore because we found out it’s not really good for milk cows to run that much. Valerie and I feel guilty every time we see Mrs. Aske working at the Super Value Store. We never heard anything through the Murdo grapevine about Aske’s having cow trouble, so I guess it turned out okay.

Huckleberries have changed my life. It is said that Mark Twain named Huckleberry Finn after the huckleberry because it grows on a short but very tenacious bush. While blueberries can be found in the supermarket year round, huckleberries, on the other hand, are not grown commercially. Huckleberries hate domestication and are traditionally harvested from the wild, making them much harder to come by. If you are eating something made from huckleberries, it’s likely because either you or someone else went up into the mountains and picked them. They can be found in the Pacific Northwest. The bears love them. We found some delicious things made from huckleberries in Montana near Glacier National Park.

Not counting rhubarb, huckleberry is now my favorite flavor. The pie and shakes we consumed are amazing. Kip also has become a big fan. One day, when we were out and about, I told Kip I wanted to buy a huckleberry pie. I knew nothing about the berry, nor had I tried them. Imagine my surprise when I found the pie cost $47.00. (This was before I learned huckleberries aren’t grown commercially.) We opted for 2 pieces at $7.99 a slice. It was love at first bite.

Now we’re in a beautiful little RV park nestled between the Columbia River and a vast peach orchard. We’re going peach shopping tomorrow. I already know I love fresh peaches…yum!

Glacier National Park is all of the above and more. While I hope you enjoy the highlight reel I put together, I have to say  I white knuckled it around every curve of the “Going-to-the-Sun Road.” I couldn’t capture the straight down view that we experienced as we traveled straight up to the top, but it was so spectacular, it took my breath away. My cell phone camera shots were in no way equal to what we saw. Kip agrees and will vouch for me. All I can say is go and experience it yourself.

We’re going on another drive into the park tomorrow. We’ve been to several national parks, and they each offer something unique but so far, if I had to choose only one to recommend visiting, it would be Glacier National Park.

Just one footnote…I didn’t have to drive on the very curvy road where I was looking straight up or straight down for as far as I could see. In addition, the barrier is only 2 feet high for 30 miles. Kip did the driving. You can book a shuttle bus or one of the large red convertible bus/cars and let someone else do the driving. You’ll still have the experience of a lifetime.

Enjoy this glimpse of today. I wish I could have shown you the really captivating views…