Before we headed to family in the San Fran area we took a side trip to Jackson, CA.  This cute little town in the foothills of the Sierras was a booming gold mining town in the 1800s.  Argonaut Mine was opened in the 1850’s as one of the deepest mines in the world at a depth of 6300 ft and produced over $17,000,000 during it’s time.  In 1922, 47 men were trapped below the surface by fire.  Rescue operations lasted for three weeks but all died.  The town was like a lot of other gold mining towns we have visited except for the unique cemetery.  We spent over an hour wondering through this huge cemetery with so many grave sites from the 1800s.  We have never seen a cemetery like…

We decided to travel Hwy 80 from Iowa to California.  Because of the time of the year we wanted to get as far south as we could before we ran into bad weather.  We stayed one night in Iowa and hit the road to Nebraska.   There we stayed two nights at a lovely State Park, Mormon Island, in Doniphan, NE, right off Hwy 80.  It was very quiet even being relatively close to the highway and very few campers in the park.  We stayed one night at a Cabela’s RV Park in Sidney, NE.  The park was okay.  This is where Cabela’s started and where they have their headquarters.   The thing about staying in a park like this is that there is no security and it sits close to the…

Oh how time flies!  I can’t believe we’ve been to Ohio and back and now are on our way south.  We always think we have so much time to do this or that or see friends/family and soon the time has passed and we haven’t done what we wanted to.  It just reminds us not to put things off. Ohio was great as always.  This time was a little different because our nephew got married to his beautiful bride on Sept 14th.  They had a perfect day at a perfect location.  The day couldn’t have been better. We spent about two weeks with Zach and Lauren doing some fun things and Joe and Zach got a new storm door hung on the front of his house.  The kitchen is done…

We are presently on our way to California and have stopped for a few nights at a state park in Utah on a reservoir.  It is in the foot hills of the mountains and we are presently the only ones in the campground sitting on a bluff overlooking a lake.   This morning when we got up it was very windy with winds at 30 to 40 mph so there were white caps on the lake.  As we were taking Lily for her morning walk we noticed a canoe on the lake with two people in it.  We thought they were crazy because of the wind.  We noticed they were struggling a little so we watched for a little but it was so windy we went inside and started breakfast.  As…

As I look back at the summer months we spent in Minnesota I wonder where they went.  We didn’t get to spend enough time with friends and didn’t even get to see some of our old friends.  Hopefully we can catch up with a few of them in October when we are back in MN for a few weeks. Family time was great with the addition of our new grandson, Alex.  He is growing like a weed as most new babies do.  His mom can’t wait until he sleeps through the night.  We have had a few opportunities to watch him while mom and dad got out of the house but haven’t had him overnight yet.  We need to do that before we head south.  Granddaughter, Cate, has spent a…

With the loss of our two Bichons, Abby in January of 2012 and Ivy January of 2013, our lives have seemed a little empty.  If you read my post on how frustrated I got from searching for our new forever dog I’m happy to update that we have adopted a sweet little 10lb female Bichon mix that is about 2 ½ yrs old or as best the rescue place can guess.  Lily, or Lil as we call her, came from a puppy mill rescue of around 200 dogs in June from outside of Fargo, North Dakota.  The information that we found was that all the dogs were small breed dogs and were in terrible condition.  Five or six dogs were crammed into a kennel and were very matted and dirty. …

I am really frustrated.  I have been searching for a new dog since our Ivy died in January.  As we gone through states and communities I’ve checked local pounds, humane societies, and rescues.  Most of the pounds and humane societies have larger dogs or the small ones go so fast you don’t have a chance.  I discovered if we want to adopt a pit-bull or pit-bull mix we wouldn’t have any trouble but for many different reasons that is not going to happen.  My first choice when I do a search is a Bichon.  With having Bichons for 16 years we know the breed and love their personalities. Here is my frustration.  I have filled out so many adoption applications and have been turned down.  There are many different excuses…

 Our new grandson, Alexander Joseph, came into our lives on July 29th weighing in at 8 lbs 9 oz and 21.5 inches long.  Mom and baby are doing great!  He is a beautiful little guy with very black hair.  Our granddaughter Cate spent a few days with us while mom was in the hospital and as always we had a lot of fun.  We were able to take Cate to the hospital so her mom and dad could introduce her to her new baby brother and she took to being a big sister so easily.  I think she is going to be a big help to her parents.  We always count our blessings and this is one more blessing we are thankful for.

We travel about 10,000 miles a year and some of those travelled miles are on busy highways.  But it just takes one little side road on a city street to get that first bump in our truck.  An enjoyable evening at Amanda and Ron’s house in Richfield, MN ended with $3,000 worth of damage to the side of the truck.  As we were finishing our dinner we heard a loud crash which brought our attention to the street.  A young man travelling west on the street where our truck was parked crossed the center line and hit a car travelling east.  The east travelling car got pushed into the driver’s side of our truck.  Neither of the other two cars was drivable after the accident so we know they hit…