Dancing Back to Work!?!?

     We returned from Quartzsite to the Roost in time for our February Follies, a fun-filled week of activities, games, skits, meals, and our general meeting.  It's basically a fund raiser for the park.  This year was no exception and a great time was had by all.  I made my While Chile, which fetched a good price at our food auction and Gary bought Mary Stuart's spaghetti sauce (as usual) for a good price.  Gary coordinated the billiard tournament and then took first place in it, although dead-eye Dennis gave him a run for it.  He also won the golf tournament.

 This photo is all the chairpeople for the many, many activities of February Follies

  The highlight of the week was  Victor's Fashion show, when  men of the Co-Op strutted the runway.  All dollar bills went to the funds raised as well.  We do have fun, as you can see by Chuck, the Bachelor (note the rose), and yours truly with her dollar.  


 The next week was the health fair and blood draw.  You can see me cooperating with this task.

      Once again our winter season here had a surprise ending.  The Park Managers resigned earlier than expected and we were asked to fill in temporarily, until the park could go on summer hours.  I started training March 4th and Gary the following week.  As of March 18th, we were on our own, although the assistant managers, Nancy and Bob were always available for our questions and to help in any way they could.  We worked four days a week from Sun-Wed.  After the training, it turned out to be a fun seven weeks.  I enjoyed learning the computerized program for the front office, from site assignment to billing, for propane, electric, and rent.  Gary handled outside chores of maintenance, parking and cleaning.  I also got to learn some of the back office with quick books, thanks to Ken's patience.  Of course the fact we were working with Escapees meant most of our customers were among the friendliest people you could find.  We finish our TEMPORARY job May 2nd.  New managers have already been hired for next Fall.

      One of the expenditures of the park this year was to buy two pool tables.  While not new, they were of much better quality than the previous ones.  Gary and a couple other pool players did the searching and arranged delivery.  It was fun watching them being set up, as they come in sections and were glued together.  The pool players all liked the new tables and are looking forward to playing on them next season.
     Working has severely impacted my time to quilt, but I have beaded a lttle more.  A few of us gals made a beading sojurn out to shop for beads and of course have lunch. Here you see Bonnie, Gwen and myself checking out the beads.  Thanks to Carol for taking the picture.

     The weather has been great this winter, with many, many days in the 70's. and nights in the 40's.  Those coincidentally are my favorite temps.  We did have a couple cold spells and once again awoke to snow on Table Top, a 4,000+ foot mountain about 25 miles from here.  Now we're helping break records for the earliest high temps, as it was 100+ yesterday.  It is supposed to go back down later this week, thank goodness.

      The Saguaros are blooimg and although they're beautiful, it's also a sign it is time for us to head north.

     As friends started to leave for the season, get-togethers were the norm of the day.  We were fortunate to have friends Doug, Toni, Joan, and Ken over one evening with Ken playing guitar and all of us singing along.  Unfortunately wind, prevented a campfire that evening, but we had many fires on our patio throughout the winter.
      We attended a local geocaching event last week and picked up some new caches as well as meeting some of the local cachers and getting a chance to put faces to the names we see in the logs.  Leap day found 10 of us from our park caching out at North Mountain Park.  What better to do with an extra day of the year than geocache?

     Now our focus is on packing and getting ready to head North.  Please do not mail anything else to our Casa Grande address.  We plan on leaving here May 5th, heading north.   You can either use our SD address or Riki's address, 401 Twin Ridge, Evanston, Wy 82930.  We're going to boondock our way though Flagstaff, Lake Powell, Bryce, the Burr Trail, and Capital Reef on our way to meet Gary's sister Pam, and her husband Jim at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah.  They're our favorite camping buddies and we look forward to spending several days with them.   
     Graduations will the the start of our summer, as Gary's grandson Jentry graduates from Herriman High School in Salt Lake City on May 31, and my grandson Keegan graduates from Evanston High School June 2nd.  To our many Elk's friends, we say thank you, as Keegan was awarded a Legacy Merit scholarship from the Elks.  We don't have any set plans for summer, but are looking forward to visiting old friends and family.  If any of you get close to Evanston, Wyoiming, or Salt Lake City, Utah, please give us a call at 307-679-8818, or send an email and we'll meet for coffee.  We always enjoy showing our area of the country off, if you can stay a few days.
    

  This time of the year is always difficult.  Thanks to our many friends who remember us and send little notes.  Today would have been Robert's 46th birthday.  It's hard to believe we buried him 7 years ago today.   This picture is one I love, of the National Fallen Firefighter's Memorial at night.  It's such a peaceful scene.  You can see more of the Memorial at their website, www.firehero.org.

Dancing toward Summer, 2012,................,  Hugs, Katy, Gary, Rusty, and Spicy

Part II of Dancing to a Quartzsite Adventure

         One of the best parts of Quartzsite are the beautiful nightly sunsets.  They seem to get better and brighter each day.

         Part II of our Quartzsite Adventure started bright and early on Saturday, 28Jan, when we picked up new friend, Kathy,  AKA Cakelady to fellow geocachers.  We headed east about 50 miles to the start of the Eagle Eye Power Run, a series of 251 geocaches in a 25+ mile stretch of road.  It was a great, paved road, with little traffic.  We had been instructed to do the series heading north, so that all the caches would be on the right side of the road.   (All four tires must be to the right of the white line when stopped.)

Eagle Eye Formation

         It was a fun day, with Katy doing the majority of the driving and Gary and Kathy taking turns jumping out of the car to find the cache, log the find, and get back in.  While it wasn't a race, we wanted to keep moving quickly in order to complete the series.  We started with the first cache at 9am and finished the series at about 3:05pm.  That included a half-hour lunch break, and a couple of other short stops to walk the dogs.  Rusty and Spicy loved having Kathy in the back seat with them and were quite put out when it was her turn to jump out and back in the car.  That made no sense to them, but they put up with it until she stayed put for a while and Rusty could snuggle back up to her.  We even found two other caches on our way back to Quartzsite.

Kathy (Cakelady) & Katy

       The next day we moved our rig to the next rally site off of Plomosa Road, about 5 miles north of Quartzsite.  We registered for the Geocaching Bof Rally and enjoyed visiting with old friends and making some new ones.  Kathy was parked next to us, so Rusty and Spicy could keep an eye on their new friend.
        The Rally started with a "Z-circle."  This was a way to meet each other in smaller groups.  About 7 folks volunteered their rigs to be hosts and the others signed up to visit.  Our able coordinator, Sue,  assigned everyone a route to take and visit three rigs.  As no two people had the same assignment, we met new people in each rig and in small groups of  8-9 people, it was easy to learn about each other.  We brought refreshments to the first rig and left those there for the others coming later to enjoy, as we moved on to other rigs every 30 minutes.  When rally activities started the next day, we all felt among friends.

Gary logging a geocahe find.

          Several seminars were held the first day.  My favorite was "Caching with your Smartphone."  I learned so much about c:geo, a free app on my phone, that I can now use it with ease.  I had previously tried it, but been mystified about how it worked.  That afternoon Gary and I set off to complete the Sunkist trail, a series of 14 caches along the old dirt road to Bouse.  We capped the evening off with a potluck dinner and a program at the Pace Theatre.  This is a rig with a large white space where movies and/or slides could be shown through a computer.  We saw unique geocaches and learned a lot about geocaching.com.  
     Tuesday had been advertised as an official geocaching "event."  That meant other cachers in the area, besides Escapees could attend and take credit for the event.  We had about 40 other cachers join us for the day.  While most of these folks were also RVers, they were camped in other Quartzsite areas.  We played several games, including identifying geocaching acronyms, a poker run, and a great bingo game that had us all laughing as we searched for someone who had geocached in their pj's, had over 1,000 caches, solved 50 puzzle caches, drew blood while caching (I think all of us caching in AZ had done that), been stopped by the police while caching, and assorted other antics familiar to many of us.
         That afternoon the dogs were delighted to be invited on another cache run with Kathy to find the 12 SKP caches placed out in the desert a few miles from the rally site.  This was a real 4 wheel drive with many dips through washes, soft sand, and some mild boulder driving.  Our Honda did great and we found all the caches!  The public event ended with a dessert potluck and cake.  It was a big hit with all and several cachers expressed interest in  joining the whole rally next year.

Rally attendees enjoy a seminar in the sun.

       Wednesday we had more seminars and went for another cache run along the old road to Yuma.  Although this dirt road was more passable, we still wound up with a flat tire.  24 caches and one tire repair later, we headed back to the rally site.  We finished that day with another pot luck dinner, a great slide show, and a wonderful campfire.
      The next morning was full of hugs, as we all bid good-bye, until we meet down the road.   Gary and I left, heading back to the Roost at Casa Grande.  All in all, we had found 34 caches in Yuma, 253 on our power run, and 62 caches in Quartzsite, for a total of 349.  That didn't seem quite right, so I convinced Gary to stop for one more on the way home to get an even 350.  Our total now is 2,306.  If that sounds like a lot, our friend Kathy was rapidly approaching 5,000 caches and hoped to hit that before she left AZ.  Others at the rally had over 10,000 caches.
      Besides all the rally activities, Gary managed to get in three pool tournaments in Quartzsite, finishing 2nd in two of them.  Our new generator ran great and the weather was definitely the best we've ever had in Quartzsite with 1 bad day and the rest beautiful.
       We arrived back at the Roost in time for our a great Super Bowl party.  This was quickly followed by February Follies.  These are five fun-filled days of games, skits, casino night, raffles annual meeting, food auction, many meals, and more laughter than I can possibly relate.  I was one of three deputies, who along with our sheriff leveled fines on those not wearing RoVer's Roost shirts, nametags, or complaining in any way.

Katy contributes $1  .

       The goal of the Follies, besides all the fun, is to raise funds for our park.  This was easily done with approximately $6,000 being raised.  Gary wound up on the first place teams in the golf scramble and beanbag baseball.  He also organized and held billiard tournaments for the ladies and men, placing first in the men.   There was entertainment in the form of  skits, a beauty pageant you had to see to believe, and a kangaroo court.

RoVer's Roost  Clubhouse During Follies

        You can see we're not bored while wintering here.  We've had a great year so far and look forward to another 2-3 months before heading north again.  We'll be going North after meeting Gary's sister, Pam and her husband Jim at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. With two grandsons graduating high school, one in Salt Lake and one in Evanston, we plan on being back there around the last week of May.
        Dancing through the end of Winter............................  Hugs to all, Gary, Katy, Rusty, and Spicy

Dancing toward Quartzsite Part I………..

     We left Casa Grande on January 18th, a little late for us, but Gary didn’t want to miss too many pool nights.  We headed toward Yuma, but HAD to make our first stop at Dateland for shakes and ice cream.  I had one, but Gary had to have two (one for the freezer) with a quart of their wonderful Date ice cream.   With our freezer properly fortified, we  headed on to Yuma.

     We arrived by noon and were lucky to get our favorite boondocking spot.  We went over for dinner with Wyoming friends, Dianne and Ray, who were staying at a local RV park and had delayed their trip back north to see us.  We had a great catch-up visit while Dianne fed us another of Gary’s favorites, rolled tacos from La Fonda’s in Yuma.  We capped off the day with a wonderful swim in KOFA’s pool and of course, the hot tub.

     Nights were cool, but daytime temps with wonderfully warm.  We spent the next day at their flea markets.  Friday was a wonderful day for both of us.  Gary played 18 holes of golf and I went to a great quilt show, put on by the Yuma quilting guild.  It’s hard to beat that for meeting both our needs and favorite activities, but we almost did it the next day with geocaching.  We found 34 caches, as we crept closer to 2000.  The dessert wildflowers were beautiful.  One of the last ones was called Yuma’s microcache.  Here is Gary checking the contents.  As will all our days in Yuma, we ended it in the pool and hot tub.

      That Saturday, our generator once again started giving us fits.  We’d had enough and decided with all the boondocking we do, we needed to get a reliable generator.  Sunday, we packed up and headed for Quartzsite and Boomerville.  After getting set up, we headed for the big tent, shopped, and brought a brand new generator back to our rig.  It sure has been nice having a reliable way to charge our batteries.

     We joined the Boomer’s Bof last Spring after attending one of their rallies at Lost Dutchman State Park.  It is a really fun group of Escapees, who stay active and share a lot of our activities.  This was our first time staying at Boomerville in Quartzsite.  There were a total of over 130 rigs that came and went during the two weeks Boomerville was set up.  Below is an aerial view taken from an  ultra light flying above our group.  These were taken each day and posted online.

     If you look at the bottom row of RV’s, there is a very small one just a little left of center.  We are just to the right and up a little from that one.  You can see our red Honda parked just in front of the class C.  The fire pit if above us, in the center of the RV’s.  You can see there is still lots of desert around us.  We are about 4 miles east of Quartzsite and a few miles in from the main road.  While it sounds like a long way, it only takes us about 15 minutes to get to the center of town. 

      Besides the shopping, Gary and couple other fellows went into town to play in pool tournaments.  Gary placed second in one of these.  We also set out to finally get our 2,000th geocache!  You can see Katy gleefully reaching up for it.  Of course, there were also pot luck dinners for all.  One night we watched an entertaining slide show about the Burning Man event in Nevada that a couple of Boomers had attended.  Their gathering of 50,000+ was something to see.  They all meet on a dry lake bed outside Reno for a week.  At a cost of $300 each, it had become so popular, that they have gone to a lottery system for tickets.  

      As I write this, Gary is playing golf in Blythe, CA with a group of Boomers.  We are getting ready to do a power cache run tomorrow.  It is located about 50 miles from here and is a run of 251 caches in a 25 mile stretch of road.  On Sunday, we’ll move to the Geocaching Bof Rally location, about 5 miles north of Quartzsite.  I’m playing with a new tool to write blogs, called Live Writer.  It will let me wrap text around, as above and hopefully get a little more creative with the editing.  We’ll see.

Dancing toward Part II of our 2012 Quartzsite Adventure……………

     Hugs, Katy, Gary, Rusty, and Spicy

Dancing a Merry 2011 Christmas to All

     Fall started off with  a Verizon class on our new Thunderbolt smartphone.  It helped some, as did the printed manual I finally secured after many phone calls and a lot of begging.  Even though they say there are no such things anymore, we finally got a printed instruction manual!

     My Fall quilt class started up with interesting projects, including a twister pattern.  I was able to make a small wreath wall hanging just perfect for the 5th wheel.  I also finished some UFO's.  & started some new projects as well.
     Quilting took a back seat (I know, it's hard to believe), when See's Candy called and asked me to return to work for them during the Fall Holiday season.  Although I had only wanted to work about 3 days a week, it wound up being 4 days most weeks and a couple of 5 week days.  Fortunately, most of the shifts were only 4 hours.  The other good part for me (& bad for See's), was that they kept our well hidden location at the Casa Grande Mall the same, and because we're hard to find, we were very, very slow most of the season.  That meant I got to sit a lot, which was easier on my ankle, but hard on See's bottom line.   Things really didn't pick up until the last couple weeks & even then, we were much slower than the rest of the mall traffic. 
     Gary's pool team wound up taking fourth in their league.  There have been a few tournaments since then, and Gary continues to play at the Senior Center several mornings each week. 
     Our park, RoVer's Roost, celebrated it's 30th birthday on November 30, 2011.  A catered dinner was held with entertainment by the Bost Family afterward.  We are fortunate to still have a few of the original leaseholders here, so it's always fun to share in their memories of the beginnings.  As most of you know our park is the first Escapee's Co-Op park created.   There are now 11 Co-Ops around the country and Escapee's has since adopted a new method of long term leases, so no new Co-Ops are planned.  We're very grateful to all those who came before us when this park was created, as it's given us a great place for our winter home at an affordable rate, and most of all with awesome SKP friends who share our lifestyle.
     Being a Co-Op, we all contribute to keeping the park running smoothly.  This year Gary has chaired the appraisal committee, and as lots have turned over, he's learned a lot behind the scenes of this facet of the park.  I've been helping with the Election and Mailing Committee, and we've both been running the Friday Sales table, where we sell the RoVer's Roost tshirts, sweatshirts, etc.
      We also attended a couple geocaching events in Chandler, AZ/  One was on 11/11/11 and held to celebrate that occasion.  The other was a Hot Chocolate held by a couple who go all out with their decorating, using about 150,000 lights, all synchronized to music.  Of course they also had a geocache hidden there. 
     Unfortunately it is getting harder for me to dance, but Gary gamely supports me holding on to him.  I'm getting better at  maintaining rhythm while weight bearing on mostly one foot, but it's still a challenge.  coincidentally, renters on our neighboring lot came here especially for him to have an ankle replacement in Phoenix.  It's been just over a month and he is doing fantastic.  I'm keeping a close eye and learning all I can about the "inbone" appliance they used.  We're down to about 10 months til Medicare kicks in and hopefully that will me me next year at this time.
     A local church put on a Bethlehem walk, where everything was done in period costume and settings. It was a walk through the market in Bethlehem and a living nativity scene at the end.  It was beautiful and very well done.
     Sad news touched us this Fall as well, when we received word that Gary's second daughter Tori had passed away at her home in Portland, Oregon.  As of this writing we don't know the details or have the final reports.  There will be a celebration of her life on her birthday next summer.

     Here's a Christmas picture of Gary with 13 year old Rusty and Katy with 8 year old Spicy. We tried for one of the four of us, but getting the two dogs to smile at the same time proved impossible.  

   A Very Merry Christmas and Happy and Healthy New Year to all our friends and family.  We are beyond grateful for your friendship and caring support throughout this year and every year.  May you all receive many blessings in 2012.  We hope to see many of you this  next year.
With Hugs, Love, and still dancing........................
Katy, Gary, Rusty, and Spicy

Dancing in Southeast Arizona

     We've been back at the Roost for almost a month.  Once we vacuumed all the dust and dirt from the haboobs (huge dust storms), this past summer, we were able to settle in and enjoy being back to our winter home.  Gary's back to playing in his pool league and my quilt class started up again last week.  It looks like we'll have some fun projects to work on and it looks like we have good speakers lined up for our guild meetings.
     We decided to take our Class C and go on a mini-trip to explore a few places we haven't seen in southeastern Arizona.   Benson, AZ was our first stop for two nights.  We toured the Throne Room in Kartchner Caverns.  This is a "living cave" that was just discovered in 1974 and opened to the public on a very limited basis in the 1990's.  To enter you go through 2 sets of metal doors to minimize air flow into the cave and a misting process to limit the dust and lint brought in.  The cavern  maintains a 70 degree temperature and has extremely high humidity.

     One of the sights we saw was the tallest, most massive column in an AZ cave, Kubla Khan, at over 58 feet tall.  Soda straws are plentiful with the longest being over 20 feet.  Since these grow at a rate approximating 1/100th of an inch a year, it's really an impressive sight.  Gary and I both were lucky enough to have drops of water fall on us while we were in the cave.   These are called "cave kisses."
     No photographs are permitted in the cave.  This picture of a postcard is the best I could do, but it's really accurate.  They are really working to keep the cave protected and limit the impact.  Because it's been protected from the start, the formations are intact without the damage you see in other caves.  We hope to go back again to tour the other section of the cave.  The Big Room is closed to tours in the spring and summer, when the cave bats come in to roost, give birth to their young, and raise them til they're old enough to migrate further south for the winter.   They estimate as many as 1,000 bats return each year and the young range from 400 this year to as many as 1,400.

     The next day we drove to Bisbee, AZ, about 90 miles southeast of Tucson.  This is an old mining town, founded in 1880 and in the early 1900's was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.   We took the Queen Mine tour, which we highly recommend if you're in the area.  We donned hard hats, coats, slickers, lanterns, and rode the same rail cars 1500 feet into the mine as the miners.  It was a cool 47 degrees where the miners worked.  We learned where and how they ate, most of the time skipping meals, as this was an opportunity to earn extra money by producing more product.  We even saw the sanitary car, pictured below.  This was introduced in 1916 and used until the mine closed in 1975.  This particular tunnel was also used for mine rescue training before being leased to the City of Bisbee for tours.  Following that we drove around the town, walked through some of the shops, and had lunch in the city park located in Brewery Gulch. 

          We drove through Tombstone on our way to and from Bisbee.  We had visited Tombstone in 2002, but there's always more to see and this time we were able to tour the local newspaper museum.  The paper is called the Epitaph, because, "No Tombstone is complete without its Epitaph."  There you can read original news from the 1880's, including reports of the 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone burning, and Geronimo's surrender.  We also went through the very small Wyatt Earp  home.  It consisted of only two small rooms and didn't include a kitchen nor a bathroom.  Historians believe they ate at brother Virgil's house and of course would have had the traditional outhouse.  The house has been restored and is an art gallery today.

      We drove on to the town of Wilcox, AZ. where we stayed at their very nice 28 site Elks Lodge campground.  While there we enjoyed touring the Marty Robbins and Rex Allen museums.  Of course while walking through those museums, their songs were playing in the background, making it hard to leave.  One of the fun exhibits was these pair of golfing boots worn by Rex Allen.
      While Gary doesn't plan on ordering a pair, he did find time to play the Wilcox golf course and was pleased to shoot a 74 on their par 72 course.  (note his score was one UNDER his age!)


     The last place we planned on visiting was Chiricahua National Monument.  Unfortunately the third largest fire in Arizona history burned much of this area last summer.  The visitor center and campground were open and the road up to the campground.  Closed was the eight mile scenic drive beyond that.  The guardrails had melted and the wooden posts burned in the fire.  They were working on replacing them, but the narrow roads didn't allow for traffic along with the heavy equipment needed to do the work.  This gives us a good reason to return to see this "Wonderland of Rocks" up close.

        As usual, we were looking for geocaches as we went and found 27 on this trip to bring our total to 1,952.  The last few caches took us to the town of Cochise, AZ.  The Cochise Hotel was built in 1882 and on the Overland Stage route.  If not for the caches, we would not have detoured to find this gem.


      After five fun filled days, we headed back to the Roost.  It was a great diversion and leaves no doubt there is much more out there for us to discover and learn about.
     

      We expect to remain in Arizona until next Spring, including our annual trip to Quartzsite and the fun-filled SKP rallies we enjoy attending there.  Our address for the next several months will be the same as the past:  3241 S.  Montgomery Road,  Casa Grande, AZ 82193.  If you find yourself traveling to Phoenix or Tucson, please give us a call.  We're centrally located and can meet you in either location. 
    
     Hugs, Katy, Gary, Rusty and Spicy  all Dancing on Down the Road..............................

Dancing toward the Roost

     We left Evanston on 9/15, for Nephi, Ut, where we parked outside Gary’s cousins, Doyle and Ann.  We enjoyed visiting with them, as we prepared for our Fall adventure heading south to Arizona.  The next day we drove on to Great Basin National Park, in Nevada.  This is one of America’s least visited National Parks, located in eastern Nevada, just across the border from Utah.  We easily found a nice camp spot, selecting a handicap spot that had a beautiful level patio.  My ankle really appreciated that and Rusty loved the cement.  We found out the campgrounds fill up most nights, so we were glad we had arrived about 1:30 in the afternoon.  The weather also turned nasty right after we arrived and we waited a couple hours for the rain to subside before we set up our satellite. 
     The next day was all sunshine, with a fresh coating of snow on  Wheeler Peak at 13,063 feet.  We drove up to the trailhead at 10,000 feet and although we started for the Bristlecone Pines, Katy only got a short distance before she realized that wasn’t going to happen.  We forced ourselves to be content with the short and level nature trail through the forest, leaving longer more rugged hikes for the future, with a more reliable ankle.  It wasn’t short on beauty though and we enjoyed the snow and glacier through binoculars while also enjoying the sunshine.

         That evening we attended a great star show, put on by one of the  Dark Rangers of the park.  He had a terrific telescope and we viewed several of the more magnificent sights in the amazing dark skies.  We started with  Alberia, a double star (one blue and one gold), located at the tail of the Swan.  Next we saw the Hercules star cluster, with about a half million stars in the viewfinder.  That was followed by a great view of Jupiter rising, where we could see four of her moons and the gas bands around the planet as well.  The Milky Way was extra bright, as we were looking through the galactic core of our galaxy and then viewed the same part of Andromeda, our nearest galaxy neighbor.  About then, the moon rose, a beautiful sight in itself, and the telescope was trained on it.  As we looked at the terminator,  (line where the dark side meets the light side of the moon), we could see many of the craters and seas on the moon.   It was one of the best telescope viewing treats we’ve had.
    Sunday morning we set out to explore the underside of the park by touring the famous Lehman Caves.  We took the long tour and saw all areas open to the public.  Despite the plural name, it’s a single cavern of limestone and marble.  It is one of the region’s most profusely decorated caves.  We saw the usual speleothems, but also saw the shields that Lehman Caves is famous for.  These are two roughly circular plates that are fastened like flattened clam shells, often with stalactites and draperies hanging from their lower plate.   One interesting spot in the cave, was the lodge room, where the Ely Elks lodge used to hold meetings.  Dances were also help there in the 20’s during the speakeasy era.  It was fun to imagine those goings on in so primitive a place.
     In addition to all the sights, we found three geocaches in the park.  Two were earth caches, which focus on significant and/or unusual geologic sites.  We enjoy the learning required in completing those, as we usually have to do a little research to answer the questions they pose.  The other cache was located at an alien bus stop, a sign of  things to come as we head next to the Extraterrestrial Highway to do some serious geocaching.
     We found a great boondocking spot at Ash Springs.  It was mentioned in the SKP’s Days End Directory.   There are developed Hot Springs there and although the fenced area with restrooms and picnic tables is posted no camping or overnight stays, there was a cattle guard that lead through the fence.  There were no signs on that side, and we parked there.  We stayed 3 nights and thoroughly enjoyed swimming in the Springs after each dusty day of caching on the ET trail. 

      Nevada’s highway 375 was officially designated the Extraterrestrial Highway by the state legislature in 1965.  A power trail cache series was placed there with 1000 caches in a 100 mile stretch.  Due to traffic concerns with snowplows this series was disabled last year.  It was replaced with new caches added in August of this year.  There are now about 1500 caches along this stretch of highway.  We never intended to do the whole thing at once and had no idea how many we would wind up with, as this was our first time on a trail of this magnitude.  The first day we cached for 7 ½ hours and got 231 caches on the trail and even found one where we were staying on our return.  The second day we cached for 8 hours and found 327 caches on the ET trail and the Area 51 mailbox caches as well.
     I must mention the “Little Al E Inn”   at Rachel, Nevada;  It’s in the southern third of the trail and has a great menu.  We reached there about 9am the second day.  The two gals working were sitting outside.  When   they saw our dogs, they offered to hold their leashes while we went inside to use the restrooms.  Gary had forgotten his sunglasses that morning and when we asked if they had any for sale, they said no, but one of the gals went to her truck and found a pair for Gary to use.  We returned them about 4 that afternoon when we returned for their famous Alien burgers on our way home to the Springs.  All in all, it was a fun adventure and brought our cache total to 1900.

     Our next stop was at the home of friends in Kingman, AZ.  Gary had been nervous about crossing the new bridge at Hoover Dam, but as he’d been told we were over it almost without realizing it.  We wound up staying in Kingman for 5 nights.  We visited with some friends from Evanston and Gary got a new pool cue while there.  Of course then he had to try it out, so managed to find two tournaments while we were there.  (Placed 6th and 5th out of about 20 in each tournament)
     The last stop we made was at North Ranch, a SKP park just north of Wickenburg, AZ.  We’re still using coupons from our working days with Escapees, so we can stay for free with full hookups.  We spent three nights, and found 10 new geocaches in the area.  We also drove up to go through the Shrine of St. Joseph, in Yarnell, an awesome recreation of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection. 
     We will arrive back at RoVer's Roost tomorrow, 30Sep.  A little early, but Gary is eager to rejoin his pool league.  My quilt class starts on the 18th and I have a couple orders to get done before then.  We'll be glad to be back, although it's still going to be a little warm for the next few weeks.  All in all, our littlest rolling house, the Class C we bought last Fall, worked very well for us this summer.  It was easier setting up and traveling with the Class C and we loved having the car for running around and geocaching.  
     Dancing toward the Roost.............................
     Hugs, Katy, Gary, Rusty and Spicy   
       

Dancing and Pooling in Evanston, Wyoming

        This was the first summer in nine years that Gary and I haven't worked managing campgrounds.  We enjoyed ourselves attending many things we were unable to, while working.   Evanston, Wyoming is a very active town and there were many local festivals we were able to attend on the weekends.  This included rodeos, Senior Center bar-b-ques at the park, a Brewfest, the Railroad Roundhouse Festival, Uinta County Fair activities, and parades. Of course there were also get-togethers with old friends.
        Most of our summer revolved around pool of some sort.  Gary enjoyed many mornings playing pool at the local Senior Center and several tournaments as well.  He had several 2nds and 3rds, along with a couple 1st places in singles and doubles.  While he was playing pool, I was in the pool most mornings.  The local Rec Center has a wonderful pool and hot tub.  There was a regular Senior Water Aerobics class on Mon, Wed, & Fri mornings and we spent a fun 4 weeks taking Water Yoga on Tue and Thur.  After our teacher left for the summer, we got permission for several of us to continue with self-guided water yoga sessions.  Being a small town, both the Senior Center and the Rec Center are located 1-2 miles from where we were parked at Riki's house.   All that time in the pool was great exercise and wonderful for my ankle.
          We didn't forsake the forest completely, as we met Gary's sister Pam and her family for a week of camping in our old campground both in July and August.  The late winter snows in Wyoming and Utah meant that the flooding in the campgrounds lasted into the middle of July.  Pam always reserves sites along the banks of the Bear River and these sites still had water sitting in them, so we all gathered in one of the great group sites.  By our week in August things were back to normal.  We watched for meteors, tried out new recipes, and just generally enjoyed relaxing in the Forest.  It was so nice with Gary not having to leave to check other campgrounds twice a day, and in case you were wondering, we didn't miss cleaning the restrooms or fire pits one little bit!
      We spent a couple weeks house and dog sitting this summer.  Gary and our daughter Riki's two oldest kids shoveled out and leveled an area on the side of their house, for us to park.  Now we're off the street, but have electricity and water.  We have to move to dump every two weeks, but with the Class C, that's easy to do and the whole moving and dumping process takes us less than an hour.  We've enjoyed being so close to their family with 3 of the grandkids.  The other 3 grandkids and our daughter-in-law, Anna live about three blocks away, so we're close by to both families.

           I was also able to take a Quilt class this summer and was even talked into teaching a class on a spiral table runner.  I also joined a group of quilters who get together and sew on some evenings or afternoons.  It was fun and I sure enjoyed getting to know another great group of gals.  Quilters have to be some of the friendliest people around, along with RVers of course.
           We were able to coordinate a family get-together with four of Gary's kids in Salt Lake this summer.  Our little miracle grandbaby, Bowdie, continues to grow and is a very busy two year old now.  It's hard to believe he was just over one pound when he was born.,  Here he is with a very proud dad.  It was the first time in many years that Gary's, daughter Sharee and her family were able to join us.  They relocated back to Salt Lake this Spring, after living in Alaska for about 20 years.  What fun seeing how all those grandchildren had grown and catching up with the kids.  Riki had a large family bar-b-que over Labor Day weekend (Cowboy Days in Evanston).  Except for Robert's oldest, Cory, being away at college already, it was fun having everyone together.

           Our other wonderful adventure this summer was attending the 51st Escapee Escapade in Gillette, WY.  We had missed the first one in WY, back in 2008, when we were working, so were excited to get to this one.  We stopped on the way to visit friends and spend the night in Bar Nunn, WY and then Gillette before we checked in.  We even got to root for Evanston at an away high school football game.  For those not familiar with Wyoming,  While two towns in the same state sound close, Evanston & Gillette are in opposite corners of the state, about 475 miles apart.  That means we got to see a lot of the state we love, while traveling.  We were on the "Row" for the Wash-Pan chapter (Eastern WA & Panhandle of ID) and promoted them and their upcoming rallies.  I also attended several seminars having to do with Geeky stuff on the internet and a couple craft classes, beading a bracelet and making earrings.  The nightly entertainment was great and of course visiting old friends and making new ones is always the best part.  There were quite a few Roosters there (folks from RoVer's Roost - our winter home), as you can see in this picture.

         Summer in Evanston concluded with Robert's name being added to the Bear River Memorial Grove in Evanston.   This is a serene area designed to memorialize individudals who have enjoyed, been active, or had an interest in outdoor recreation and the Evanston Community.   The Fire Department approached us early in the summer, asking permission to do this and of course, we said yes.  We also helped once again with the Demolition Derby, the major fund raiser for the Evanston Volunteer Fire Department.  We've continued to do this in Robert's name, as a way of carrying his legacy forward.  It's one of those things we know he would want us to do.

        Our plans as we get ready to leave include visiting Great Basin National Park, geocaching a portion of  the Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada, visiting friends in Kingman, AZ, and a brief stay at North Ranch, outside Wickenburg, AZ .  Our littlest rolling house (Class C), has worked well for us this summer and we've enjoyed having the car for geocaching and day trips. Now as the nights in Wyoming get nippier (a touch of  frost a couple times), and daytime temps cool to the high 60's and low 70's, it's time to head further South.
      One of the things I learned in a Geeks seminar at Escapade was how to add the gadget that will let you sign up to be notified directly by email when I post a new blog.  It's at the top right side of the blog, so feel free to use this.  Eventually, I'll probably do away with separate email notifications.  Take care everyone and we hope to see you on down the road.
     Hugs, Katy and Gary,  (Rusty and Spicy too, of course)