Updates and admitting that we are hard-core RV-ers.

Whenever I read over some of my old posts, I berate myself for neglecting The Blog.  Even if nobody else ever reads it, it's a priceless record to us.  And so I am pulling it out of the attic, dusting it off, and will (hopefully!) get back in the groove.  Because we're not dead yet.  

Update:

My last post (of over a 1.5 years ago) started off with us selling our 40 foot ("Beast") motorhome, which I was very ready to see go.  I SAID we were going back to good old-fashioned tent camping.  Or so we thought.

That lasted until the following spring ..... when we hatched the *brilliant* plan of rejoining our motorcycling and camping lifestyles, with a toy-hauler.  (This is an RV wherein the rear wall opens and lays down as a ramp.  Toy-haulers can carry all types of man-sized "toys" on wheels.)  As you may recall, our motorhome carried our motorcycle on the back.  THIS would carry it inside.  Brilliance.  Or so we thought.

Fondly remembering the assets of our first little all-aluminum trailer, we searched for one from the same company, which Husband located in San Diego.  (At least it wasn't Arkansas this time.)  So off we went in our Jeep, towing our motorcycle in a U-Haul trailer.

There we loaded the motorcycle into our *new* (four years old) rig, hitched it to the Jeep and headed back north.  It was during that trip we decided the Jeep just didn't have the oomph to do the job, since this trailer was wider than our original trailer.  So after we returned home, our beloved Jeep was sold and replaced with a lovely red F150 pickup, which squarely entrenched us as true Central Oregonians.  (Eeeeeverybody drives a pickup here.)

It was very spartan inside, with hideous "Polaris" decor, and the exterior had been thoroughly faded by the southern Cali sun.

This is as it looked on our way home.  The furniture was folded up against the walls.  The bed raises and lowers to allow the bike to come and go.

Then followed about six weeks of pure fun (memory always erases the not-fun parts) as we fixed it up.  The exterior got new paint and decals.

The interior went from this:

to this:

We loved it ......

                or so we thought.

Last fall we headed for New Mexico, since that was our last unexplored western state.  We stopped briefly to see our delightful Utah family and then did our annual obligatory visit to Moab.

OH!  I forgot!  We bought a kayak!  (How COOL are we?!)  It's inflatable and holds both of us, plus the dog, and we love it!  So we brought it along on this trip and did about 8 miles on the scenic (brown) Colorado river just outside of Moab.
Note: for those of you who have never launched any type of small non-powered boat on a river, it involves a lot of ferrying of vehicles from the put-in point to the take-out point, which we were able to do with me and dog in the truck, and Husband on the motorcycle.  This is to avoid having to hitchhike a ride back up-river to the truck.

Then we spent two nights at the Great Sand Dune National Park in southern Colorado.  (Sllliiiightly overrated.  Definitely a do-only-once destination, although the pic below is gorgeous.)   I had to laugh at all the people we saw heading out to climb the dunes in hiking boots.  Obviously they were sand novices and strangers to the Oregon coast where we all know to go barefoot.

(Took this off the internet.) 

https://www.colorado.com/articles/national-park-profile-great-sand-dunes-national-park-preserve

It was here when the benefits of carrying one's motorcycle inside one's RV began to fade.  If one is relegated to the only available spot in the park and is backed up into that tiny campsite where one cannot lower the ramp to disembark said motorcycle, then one must sleep with a large vehicle situated between one's bed and one's bathroom.  Why didn't we unload the bike before parking the trailer?  Frankly, I don't remember.

Then we headed into the artsy, touristy town of Taos, New Mexico, and some much anticipated internet.  (I'd been dealing with a few withdrawal symptoms after being off-grid for several days.)  About an hour after we arrived there, somehow-somewhere a very important cable was accidentally severed, plunging the entire area into an internet-less abyss that lasted for the next 12-13 hours.  In fact even the land-line phones were all down.  I was aghast .... what if there was an emergency??  But the locals just seemed to shrug it off.

Taos is entertaining for about 2.5 hours, after which those of us with short attention spans become bored.  I have learned in my RV-ing experience that making reservations and finding places to camp are fairly easy Monday - Thursday.  But by Friday, you'd better be hunkered down for the weekend.  So we endured Taos till Monday.  The friendly folks with whom we attended church in their very small congregation, ALL encouraged us to move there full-time (so as to permanently teach a Sunday class or something).  It was that weekend we discovered the ramp of our trailer, upon which the motorcycle enters and exists, was becoming spongy.  It was rated to hold much heavier vehicles than we subjected it do .... AND did I mention it was only four years old??

So we called the local church leader, who kindly offered to let us use a few of his power tools and Husband fashioned a plank to lay over the ramp, so as to continue being able to load and unload the bike.  (Needless to say, our opinion of the manufacturer of our trailer (and the ramp) dropped significantly.)

Skipping ahead, since this is getting long-winded .... we visited San Juan (lovely!) ... (oops!, I meant Santa Fe),  Los Alamos where the atomic bomb was built, and saw more ancient ruins in Chaco Canyon which IS the Mother-of-the-Middle-of-Nowhere where visitors must suffer miles of very rough road for which, in my opinion, there is no excuse.  (Kinda done with ruins after that.)

The best of that trip was Lake Powell in our kayak.  A few pics:  (Antelope Canyon)

It gradually narrows down to a channel barely wide enough to U-turn the kayak, where you hit land and can hike further into the slot canyon on foot.  Husband is clamoring to return .... or perhaps move there (insert eye-roll emoji here).

Alas, however, it was not our favorite trip, and added to some necessary cold winter usage, I'm afraid our current trailer has fallen out of favor.

HENCE, onto Plan ... um ... a, b, c .... D!

We are getting a Sprinter van!  More on that coming up ..... because I WILL return.