Home is Where we Hook-up

I almost can’t believe it, today is October 31st, Halloween. Keith and I took Zoe to the lake this morning and giggled about wading around in bath temperature water – and it’s almost November! (Ok – Keith wasn’t really giggling…do I have to clarify that?) I’m not mentioning the gorgeous warm and sunny day to rub it in to any of you experiencing bad, nasty, cold, windy, rainy weather. I’m just stoked that we are here in the land of sunshine, hallelujah!

We are confident that we will not have any ghosts or goblins knocking on our trailer door tonight – so we are hitting the town to brave a haunted house. I have been wanting to go to a haunted house for years, please don’t ask me why, I really am a scardy cat, biggest chicken of them all – and yet….I can’t wait – I’m scared already!

In our last post, I mentioned that we’d flown from Boulder City to Fresno – an overnighter trip. I really should learn to send the dog to the kennel with more than just one day’s food – I know an overnighter is rarely any less than two or three days minimum, ha ha. We managed to spend a little bit of time in Bishop – for the most part (weather permitting) it’s enroute.

Flying over the Eastern Sierra’s is amazing, something I’ll never get tired of. We crossed the range just one day after a fresh snow. Gorgeous.

I even managed to cross off one thing on my list of “things to do before I die” Since in my mid-twenties, or should I say, from the time I stopped hating everything about this little town I was forced to live in, and began to appreciate my good fortune of being raised in such a pristine and special region, I’ve wanted to climb to the top of Mt. Tom.

Imagine the luck of flying over the top of this mountain of my dreams. My first thoughts as I noticed the switchbacks lightly covered in snow, traversing the back of the mountain were that I was going to get a birds eye on the best way to climb this mountain in the future. As we closed in, I realized those switchbacks, well, they just petered out – they do not in fact go all the way to the top. This concerned me, but not nearly as much as Keith telling me

“I don’t have enough power at this altitude to land”

With my left hand firmly jammed against the door, practicing breathing and trying to talk in normal tones through my teeth, I agreed that was fine, no problem, wouldn’t give it a second thought. From where we hovered over this jagged topped pile of rock, I couldn’t imagine where in the world he would set down, and I was terrified.

As we decended into the valley below, I sighed with relief, I am SO OVER my need to climb Mt. Tom – cross ‘er off the list! And boy wasn’t I glad to have found out this way, rather than spend an entire day hiking, only to find out that unless you have serious climbing gear – there’s no way to reach the top. Bust!

Sometime ago, well back when we were settled in Washington, I decided to look for work that I could do from wherever Keith and I happened to be. I don’t need to explain it to most of you, my job as the “cold beer, clean laundry wench” while on the road was one I mastered pretty quickly. Several people have asked me over the years,

“What do you do?”

And some have said:

“I could never live like that”

Yeah, full-timing is not for everyone. Technology has absolutely come to my aid – I am officially able to work from anywhere, anytime. As a matter of fact, Keith and I flew the helicopter from Boulder City to Fresno yesterday – we will make the return trip this afternoon, and I am getting work done while here. This, of course is another story, another blog post.

Last Thursday I flew to Dallas for an annual conference for Virtual Assistants. And now you are going to say “What?” The fifth growing industry in America, the #1 in Canada, and most people have no idea what it is. If it helps, think Executive/Administrative Assistant, Graphic Artist/Designer, Bookkeeper just to name a few – the visual you have is likely is of a person in an office, maybe even a cubicle environment (God forbid!). Take them out of the office – and voila – you have a Virtual Assistant. It’s the same work, just done remotely. If you are reading this thinking “I work from home, does that make me?????” Yes. But, anyway, that’s all information that will be on my business blog – not necessarily what I came here to write 🙂

So, Dallas. Texas is not one of my favorite states. As a matter of fact, it ranks right up there with Wyoming on the list of “States YOU can keep” Yes, I think the people are friendly, not neccessarily any nicer than most people I meet, but certainly they are hospitable. (I think my dimples really disarm just about anyone who would be any less than friendly….it’s just a theory) But, the freeway and highway systems are a wreck, and as nice as these people very well may be, they drive like maniacs. I always feel vunerable in the state of Texas – clearly I am used to being surrounded by gigantic mountain ranges, and in Texas, well, it’s not flat as a pancake like Kansas, but close enough.

For the fact that I arrived Thursday afternoon and with the exception of having to detour to our meeting room via an outside door and back in again (due to broken pipes and incidentally massive flooding) I didn’t go outside – much less around the city of Dallas, for three days. Meetings and workshops wrapped up Saturday night, my flight didn’t leave until 7 p.m. Sunday night. How could I not make an attempt to visit the JFK Memorial? Every trip must start with a plan. There were two other delegates of the conference who had a 7 p.m. departure that night, so we decided to pal around. The hotel’s courtesy van gave us a lift to the railway, the young woman driving offered to take us somewhere so we could buy an umbrella – and I don’t think she knew what to make of us when we explained to her that not one of us, one from Portland, OR, one from San Francisco, CA, and myself a refugee from Washington, were going to melt or (unfortunately) shrink in the rain. The afternoon was pleasant – we wandered the WestEnd taking pictures and getting to know each other. Laurie, from Portland has a friend in Dallas, and she came to pick us up, gave us a driving tour of the downtown – with a quick stop at the infamous Grassy Knoll. Time allowed only a few pictures of the area, including the Book Depository that is now the 6th Floor Museum, where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy.

Since Sunday was “game day” (and in Dallas that means more than I could have imagined) we made our way to the airport a little early. Laurie was coincidentally on the same flight as me – and she was terrified of flying. I took her under my wing for the leg of the flight we shared, and when we neared Vegas she asked so sincerely,

“Can you go to Portland?”
I laughed and answered enthusiatically,

“Absolutely! You just have to get the last minute ticket, put me up for the night, get my return ticket for tomorrow and pay my hourly wage – I’m IN!!!!”

Alright, so we departed the plane, I walked her to the flight screens to check her current gate information, pointed to the gate, said my goodbye’s and walked away to find Keith to take me home. But, there could be a market for that sort of thing, don’t you think?

Keith and I take Zoe for a swim in Lake Mead at least four or five times a week, yesterday (Saturday) was one of those days. It’s all very routine – she jumps in her crate in the truck and whines (with anticipation, we think?) for a better part of the 5 mile trip. Well, yesterday I was the one doing the whining……as we rolled down the Hwy 93, passing the ever expanding housing tracts I spotted a road sign with an arrow – advertising the Lake Mtn. Garage Sale. No question about it, I knew what I would be doing this morning. Keith can’t help but ask me,

“What is it that we would need from a yardsale?”

I am ready for the question and always have a few items that, while they don’t qualify for the need list, are on the list of useful items I would not pay retail for. I usually find what I am looking for – and enjoy the rush of scoring bargins, aw heck, maybe that’s what the need is.

I was completely unprepared for Saturday’s yardsale, I didn’t get started until after 9:30 a.m. I followed the traffic into the tract, and like a good little lamb ended on a street that seemed a garage sale goldmine – no less than four houses with open garages and people pouring in and out. The first house I shopped was already doing a 25% reduction on all items, that made me laugh. This is where I met DeeDee, a cute little service dog (breed unknown) wearing a sign around her neck “NOT FOR SALE” another laugh -off to a good start this morning. I mentioned to DeeDee’s owner that I was looking for a silverware box and she quickly got the attention of her husband and asked “someone here has a silverwar box, don’t they?” I perked up at the question, he agreed he thought he’d seen one at one of the sales – a glimmer of hope for me! Then she asks,

“Would you like a map?”

A MAP?? Ummm, yeah, ok, a map’ll do just fine, thanks. I take hold of this 8×11 paper designating the entire tract and showing in color were the houses participating in this annual garage sale. Counted ’em up- there were 45 sales going on. Oh, yeah, pay dirt!

I sifted through other people’s junk for the better part of the morning, and into the afternoon. What bargins did I find, and did I score the silverware box? One lady admitted that she had just sold a lined box within the last hour. Another man had an antique box including sterling silverware for sale, but it was not what I was looking for (he did start cleaning the silver after my interest…..) So, no luck on the box. I did find a small piece of luggage – never used – that will be perfect for an upcoming trip to Dallas this month – walked away with it for .50 cents. Picked up a book on “Hidden Mexico” for a quarter and even that was only after the old guy sitting in the driveway said to me “You have to buy SOMETHING!” For all the entertainment I get from eavesdropping and people watching it was the least I could do, ha ha ha.

More stories on the way…………………………..

I’m sorry to say, in the only chicken update I’ve written – there is some bad news. To anyone reading this who might not know, we transferred our adoption rights of the wonderfully wild Key West gypsy chickens to some good friends of ours when we moved last May. I am kept apprised of current chicken happenings, and Kathryn and I have laughed and gossiped for hours about the goings on in chickendom. So, it is very unfortunate that I am to report that for no apparent reason Simon failed to return from the woods with his hens – that was about two weeks ago.

by heligypsy

The search for him turned up no evidence what so ever, not so much as a feather, he just disappeared. I am sorry that he is no longer with us, he was such a fun rooster to watch and listen to. I made recordings on the last day these chickens owned us, I had to preserve Simon’s “IMA rooSTER” crow that has always put a smile on my face. (unfortunately wordpress does not support sound files, I fully intended to link his crow on this blog) Poor little dog brain, Zoester really freaks if I playback the recordings ….her head cocks sideways, dog-ear pointed as straight as it goes. This morning she pawed up on the window to look out, she is so confused by where her chickens are!

I could post a hundred pictures of Simon and his lovely flock of gypsy chickens – but if you want to see them, just check out our webshots – I think if you click the pics here it will take you directly to the page.

I started a blog about the gypsy chickens – there are only a couple stories left on here, but if you are unaware of our life with these wonderful birds, it might catch you up. I am always grateful for all the time I got to spend with these creatures – I will raise chickens again, I do know that 🙂

Well, I have been working up content in my head for another installment on this blog regarding the efforts Keith and I have made to learn to speak Spanish. “Speak in a week” the series is called – and yes we are making some progress. “Donde estas los llaves?” is a favorite of mine, “Where are the keys?”. Around here there is a lot of practice on that one.

But then this morning I am reading one of my favorite blogs – the one linked on the right under blogroll, the Quirky Kitsch Girl and I am reminded of the new sort of language that we are all supposed to be practicing – for tomorrow is International Talk like a Pirate Day

I know it’s last minute, but I can’t help but think how much fun this could be. Count on it, I’ll be talking like a pirate for sure (can you do pirate with a spanish accent?) Here’s a bit of a clip with lessons for us all. Thanks for the reminder Jen!

Check out this video clip of Las Vegas’s ABC affiliate covering the catastrophe at the Hoover Dam when 100 mph winds knocked down five construction cranes on Friday. The cameraman/reporter was circling the parking lot yesterday when I showed up to pick Keith up from work. Seeing the Washington plates on the truck he was interested in hearing my story – hoping I was frustrated by the road closure…..as that’s what his bosses wanted, a story about irritated and frustrated travellers. He was amused that I was the helicopter pilots girlfriend and we had a good laugh about the “lack of frustration” out on the highway. He scored with his interview of the biker, and later told me “disappointed” was about all he could hope for, that was a wrap for him.

So, there’s a glimpse of Keith’s helicopter flying tourists – they did record-breaking business yesterday…..on a day that everyone thought would be dead, dead, dead. Apparantly people can’t read – there are at LEAST four signs about the road closure, ha ha, no accounting for people’s travel habits.

If you were to run mapquest to get mileage on a trip from Fresno California to Independence California, the results would yield a driving trip just a hair under 295 miles – at least a 6 hour drive (click the link and scroll down to see the map). Not surprisingly, putting in coordinates on a GPS from the Fresno airport to the Independence airport results in a completely different set of numbers – try a 72 mile trip, less than a 40 minute flight. Though it’s not neccessarily news this makes Keith and I smile. Just a couple glimpse’s of what it looks like at 11,000 ft. over the mid-section of the Kings Canyon Sequoia National Forest.

And I do mean glimpses…just as I was oooohhhing and awwwing at the scenery in the above photos, straight ahead was a view that was somehow so very familiar – just something I had never seen aerially and from this direction. Before me lay my beloved Owens Valley – the deepest valley in North America.

Our time in the valley was cut short – we’d ended up overnighting Thursday night in Fresno to give the mechanics a bit of extra time to complete the required maintenance…..such as a new engine and rotor blades….all pretty important stuff, no need to rush ’em! Keith was set to start flying tours later that Friday afternoon, so no setting down for any visits. This next picture, where the X marks the spot is where the Manzanar Relocation Camp once stood (each link has different information) and if you look closely – the white spot in the upper left hand corner is the Owens Dry Lake (I’m getting pretty lazy letting Wikipedia tell all my stories, ha ha ha) My brother recently transferred from Los Angeles working power for the LADWP up to Lone Pine, territory being the Owens Lake. Happy to be home, bro?

From this vantage, if you were to turn your head to the right would be the magnificent view of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States measuring 14,491′.

Which completes our sightseeing of my old stomping grounds. In the time it takes me to snap a few photos, we begin our climb into the Saline Valley and then over Death Valley. An hour earlier, we’d pushed closed the vents and windows, as it was just so dang cold that high up in the mountains – ahhhh how quickly things warm up in the desert!

On our United flight to fresno, the Captain welcomed us, advised that we would be reaching cruising altitude of 24,000′ and that unfortunately there was not going to be many landmarks to point out, other than we would fly over Death Valley National park. Well, he was not wrong, but at 8,000′ this landscape keeps the ole’ eyeballs busy. My pictures don’t do any justice to the stark contrasts of the barren volcanic landscape shaped by techtonics, alluvial fans and mysterious sand dunes. Morning sun burns the ground, but today there is slight reprieve with mottled harmless puffs of cloud.

Keith tells me I’m spoiled to fly over this part of the country and not have to suffer the normal rough riding turbulence. I smile, yes, yes, I am a pretty lucky girl, no doubt about that 🙂

My photo’s of our approach into Vegas really did not turn out – though I can spot which casino is which on the panorama, it’s probably not worth posting here. I snapped a few of the urban sprawl as well, but the one I will post is a close up of just one of the hundreds of zero lot line developments…..pretty much couldn’t pay Keith or I to inhabit one of these places…puhleaze!!!

No disrespect intended to anyone reading this who lives in one of these, no doubt, beautifully decorated homes – but there’s not even room to raise chickens …….no thanks, ha ha ha. Here is the space Keith and I have – crazy that it’s more than the people living here full time. We are in the space with the big tree….shading our driveway?! We were hoping for a space with a view of Lake Mead, but ya know, sometimes you just can’t have everything -we are happy here (now that we have 2 a/c’s to keep things cooled down!)

That about wraps up our 2.5 hour flight, it was a really nice morning 🙂

There are thousands of things I have learned about life in the last few year’s – one of the more frequently occuring lessons is the one about “don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today”. Yes, this one becomes especially hightened on the heels of loosing my dad, (and I am missing him terribly these days) but that’s not where this lesson comes from, particularly.

Here’s just a tiny glimpse (and lots of you already know where I am going with this) of how the days go for Keith and I. With our list of assorted errands to take care of in Las Vegas, we headed into the city relatively early this morning – to beat the heat, the traffic, and to make it to an appointment on time. Having successfully checkmarked nearly everything on the list, we headed back to the RV in Boulder City right around lunch time. By 2 p.m. we decided to take zoey to the lake for a bit of a swim. (Keith insists it’s zoe doing her vulcan mind-meld on us….if we were in our right minds we would never agree to head out into the desert at 110 degrees…..lake or no) As we drove the ole’ Boulder Hwy, Keith remarks about finishing his BBQ modification project, but adds “well, at least I have tomorrow off too” Yes, yes, I agree, that is a good thing.

His phone rings, oh I don’t know, couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes later from his last comment, “This is Keith,” he answers, and greets the caller who just happens to be his boss………and within the next 2 minutes not only does he NOT have the next day off, but he and I are talking about all the arrangements to be made post dog swim, so that he and I can fly commercially to Fresno in the a.m. and return later in tomorrow afternoon with the helicopter to begin the tours of the Dam.

It’s nearing 8:30 p.m. (and is still in the very high 90’s…I can’t help but add) Zoey is comfortably checked into “paws and claws” for her little overnighter, we have flights booked for 8:40 a.m, and Keith’s BBQ is just gonna have to wait….and that’s how it goes…..

Last spring on a message board I visit, there was a discussion about blogs – who was writing, who was reading, what was being written. There was a good piece of advice posted about regular blogging in regards to keeping in touch with family and friends,

“Just don’t talk about what you ate for breakfast too much.” There were a few of us who smarted off, replying with what was for breakfast that day 🙂

But, you know, the longer we full time in our 5th wheel, the more that sort of information seems to become completely relevant. Thinking back to how we came to be living this lifestyle, of all the reasons there were three that really set us on the path. The first was, of course, the dog. Keith was, at the time, flying skycranes on fires – I followed him across the country in our Jeep with the Zoester. Increasingly it became a hassle to have to call ahead to these sometimes very small towns, and ask the front desk of a motel (under already stressed situations) “do you take pets?”, There were a few times we had to stay at separate motels from the rest of the crew, and only one time (in Hailey, Idaho) that we had to “sneak” her in….uuuggghh.

Secondly, being “on the road” for more than 200+ days a year, it never made much sense to be shelling out for a home base – we were never there (wherever there is). The remaining 1/3 of a year would usually have us travelling for pleasure’s sake, visiting family and friends.

The third factor in our decision was, well, maybe not breakfast per se – but certainly meals in general. Does eating out every single day, at least twice a day for weeks and months at a time really sound that good to anyone reading this? If it does, you’ve probably never done it. Not long into our road warrior summer, I gathered a few essential kitchen supplies (one large, pink plastic bowl, a can opener, one sharp cutting knife, plastic eating utensils…oh, and you can bet there was a wine opener or two as well) and began trying to make a meal here or there in our motel room – it was a challenge I rose to and sought out the most creative healthy meals I could, (a favorite being crab salad stuffed in avocado halves). By the end of that first summer we began looking at alternative modes of living on the road.

For the past three year’s we have been living in a small travel trailer – with a very recent upgrade to our fancy schmancy Hitchiker 5th wheel. We fell in love with the rear kitchen floor plan, and are now enjoying a sizeable kitchen, in which we spend a good deal of time. Nothing against crab salad, but it’s got nothing on grilled wild salmon with rosemary and garlic…..leftovers finding their way into a salmon and sun-dried tomato frittata the next morning. There’s no way around it, here on this blog, you are gonna hear about what we’re eating…..at least occasionally.

Breakfast anyone?

The cliches that come to mind with this first entry of our new blog are endless…and I refuse to use any of them! Our plan has long been to replace those mass emails of our travels with a blog – hallelujah, it looks like we’re getting there!

Keith returned 10 days ago from Ensenada, Mexico – where he spent the last 2.5 months on a fire contract. Though it will be out of chronological order, we are working on retrieving some of his stories to publish here, they are great adventures. I missed him terribly, it’s uncommon for us not to travel together, but, I stayed in California to help take care of my terminally ill father. He passed away at the end of July. Keith lost his father a week before Christmas – the two of us have been great support to one another during the really strange acceptance of such losses.

So, together again and back on the road, our gypsy ways creep back to life. We headed out of Bishop last Sunday – destination Boulder City, Nevada home of the Hoover Dam. This is not our first time living in the Las Vegas area. It is, however, the first time we’ve settled in during this time of year. I am constantly astonished to note the temperatures at any given time of day. Example, last night at 7:30 p.m. the temp was 100 degrees. This morning at 7 a.m. – already it was 90 degrees. Amazing how quickly a person’s body adapts to it’s environment – late in the evening when the sun is no longer blazing down, I actually find the 90 degree temps quite pleasant, ha ha. We treated ourselves to a trip to Camping World, with the hopes they would have an air conditioning unit in stock, our single A/C in the living room has no hope in hell of keeping up with the rising temps – no matter what tricks we try. We were in luck, there was a unit in stock, we bought in on the spot – Keith says he will install it in the evening as it cools down, I smirk at his sarcasm.

Things in Vegas are as we expected – zero lot line housing is spreading like a disease with seemingly very little concern for the water issues. Lake Mead is probably down a good 80 ft since we first stayed in the area 5 years ago. We have been taking Zoey for a swim every morning – the shoreline is disqusting littered with trash and debris – thankfully the dog doesn’t care, it’s the only excercise she’s getting in these temps, all I know is I will save the swimming for the pool here at the RV Park.

Until next time………