Tough Trip

When we left Lonn and LoraLee’s tonight it was snowing so hard you could hardly see.  Laci’s husband John was traveling from Great Falls and kept calling with periodic awful road updates.  It took us a while to get home, we met John at the West Boulder turn-off—we are all safe and sound, tucked in for the night.

Our view this morning.  We waited until about noon before taking a walk, letting it warm up just a touch once again. 

I found my little “heart” ruler and finished quilting the bunny quilt this morning plus I attached the binding using the longarm.  Today while visiting over at Lonn and LoraLee’s, I sewed on all the little button eyes.  It’s almost done.  My niece Niki called today to check on us plus she wanted to make sure her name was on that quilt.

Katie’s husband Michael (yep, it gets confusing at times) grilled some wonderful steaks tonight.  I was informed the cookie jar was getting empty—this from the same young woman (Katie) who told me NOT to bring any food over there today.  Guess you know what I will be doing in the morning!

And that’s about all we did today. 

A Cold Thursday And A Bunny Quilt

Seven degrees this morning and the temp never rose above 16 degrees all day.  We both used the treadmill for exercise delaying Emmi’s walk until after lunch when it was at least a touch warmer.  It snowed during the night, too, another 2-3 inches.

Today we stayed home, Michael is working on re-upholstering the VW seats and I quilted almost finishing my “bunny quilt.”  It’s adorable!  I still have to place some kind of motif in the center of each bunny bottom half as those areas are too large to leave un-quilted.  I’m leaning toward a “heart” but can’t find my correct sized heart ruler—it has sprouted legs and disappeared. 

Homemade pizza for lunch and haven’t decided if we are even having supper! The cowboy might have to fend for himself which will mean we have popcorn—he is a wonderful popcorn cook!  And you know, the guy was a cook in the army—what happened to all those skills he learned??? 

And I think that’s it for our cold Thursday.

Monday Goes By

We were at home yesterday—it was 7 degrees when we got up so my dear husband decided that treadmill in our bedroom didn’t look so uninviting after all—I was proud of him!  I used the treadmill too for exercise until late afternoon when it warmed up to a whopping 17 degrees—then we took Emmi for a short walk!  I snapped this photo quickly as we were hiking along—too cold to stop and take photos!

Today we were at Lonn and LoraLee’s for most of the day.  Katie made some delicious shredded beef for dinner—very good!  With all the food over there, it is easy just to snack the day away—thus the need for the treadmill! 

We are not normally in Montana for the month of January—our driveway is a solid sheet of ice requiring us to put chains on the four wheel drive diesel pickup in order to get up and down the driveway!!!  We flagged down our UPS man, Bill, today and told him not to even attempt coming up the driveway—he can leave any packages in the lower shed and we will retrieve them later.

Costco must raise bigger chickens !  Big Timber IGA egg on the left, Costco egg on the right.

Wow Did Our Weather Ever Deteriorate!!

I guess the weather police will be after me next for writing about weather but so be it. We’ve gone from sunny, warmish weather and dry roads to 17 degrees, snow and scary slick roads.  We went into town to take lunch to Nat and the roads were just about as nasty as they were the night we went in the ditch with the jeep back before Christmas. 

Just a clarification about bulk fuels.  Diesel fuel or gasoline can be purchased in bulk in any form.

1. Diesel fuel for use in on road vehicles—diesel pickups, semi-trucks, busses, motorhomes, etc. use this fuel.

2. Off road diesel fuel—frequently called “red dye” fuel—is used in equipment NOT driven on the highway such as farm equipment or construction equipment.  The penalty for using this less expensive diesel fuel in a vehicle driven on the highway is extremely high—so high we would never even consider using this type fuel for highway vehicles.

We have three different, well marked bulk tanks labeled with government supplied stickers which state, 1. GASOLINE, 2. DIESEL, OFF ROAD USE ONLY, 3. ON HIGHWAY USE DIESEL and when we are feeling flush, we fill all three of those bulk tanks.

After our trip to town we went over and spent some time at Lonn and LoraLee’s.  Both our granddaughter’s husbands left for home today driving some miles over those slick, awful roads.  And that’s about it for our cold, wintery Sunday.

May have to give those Bounce dryer sheets a try in our VW bug! 

Videos and KitchenAid Mixers

Not long ago while scrolling through Facebook, I noticed that videos played automatically when the cursor rolled over the video—what’s up with that???  I also saw a reference to this on another person’s Facebook page saying, “you cannot change this in your Facebook settings.”  Well KarenInTheWoods figured out how to stop this issue—you can disable this little problem in your brower.  I use Chrome and was able to disable this feature by going to settings and content.  Here is the link Karen sent me. 

I have noticed one problem after disabling the auto-play feature in Chrome—gadgets such as WeatherBug which I have on my blog do not load automatically any more, the gadget is there but is blank—I have to click on the gadget to get any info.  There is a spot to enter “exceptions” when disabling auto-play—I may now have to figure out how to do that!  It’s always something isn’t it???

Yes, Peter, our motorhome is a diesel pusher but we usually bring it home full of diesel and have no need to replenish it from our bulk tanks.  Plus the motorhome holds 160 gallons of fuel (ouch!)!  Buying fuel in bulk is NOT less expensive, in fact it is usually about twenty cents per gallon more expensive than at the pump.

Michael brought my little 1959 VW up to the house today and ordered new tires.  He is going to try his hand at recovering the seats.  Now we have to figure out how to keep the dang mice out of it!!  Disgusting little varmints!!

We spent the afternoon and evening at Lonn and LoraLee’s enjoying a great dinner—I roasted pork tenderloins in the oven and accompanied the meat with Pioneer Woman’s potatoes, and a salad.  Dessert was fresh apple cake and ice cream.  Michael and Lonn taught Laci’s husband John how to play cribbage—I warned John to watch out for that card shark Michael! 

The motorhome is outfitted well with kitchen tools and gadgets but some of the things I use both in the house and the motorhome—I take my KitchenAid mixer and my good knives from the house—so as a result both those heavily used items are in John and Brenda’s yard in Arizona!  I’ve been missing my mixer—I found some knives I could get along with—I mentioned it at dinner last night with Sarge and Sarah.  Well, Sarah offered me the use of her KitchenAid mixer—they are gluten free eaters and Sarah said she had not used the mixer in a long, long time.  But the best thing—they delivered it to Lonn and LoraLee’s this afternoon!  I am back in the bread making business!!  Thank you Sarah!!

Snow and cold temps are headed our way this week—we might not be seeing so much bare ground! 

This And That

We only got about an inch of snow from the last snowstorm and today the temps reached almost 50 degrees melting it all.  Our driveway is steep in places and sheltered by trees which block the sun.  As a result the two driving tracks are complete sheets of ice—the snow melts on top in the day time then freezes back at night—very treacherous! 

Yesterday and today Michael diligently worked on his family history project putting photos into albums and organizing the letters, newspaper articles, etc. into boxes and files.  I started quilting my little bunny quilt—it’s so sweet, I can’t wait until it’s finished.

Yesterday afternoon late we took dinner over to Lonn and LoraLee’s—Katie, our granddaughter, is back for a while—she teaches a combined class of first and second graders in a small school near Miles City, MT.  The school as been very understanding allowing Katie the time off she needs to be here. 

Tonight we had the pleasure of joining Sarge and Sarah for dinner at the Rib and Chop House in Livingston.   Dinner was delicious and the company was great—we haven’t seen Sarge and Sarah since before Christmas. 

View of the Crazy Mountains from Swingley Road going over to Livingston this evening. 

Bye Bye Good Weather

We’ve enjoyed such good weather since coming home over a week ago—we are spoiled—it snowed today, not very much but it snowed. 

Tuesday morning I went to yoga—yoga makes me happy, and it was so good to see my friends.  My poor aching body could tell I had not done yoga in a while!  Tuesday night we went over to Lonn and LoraLee’s—a sister and a sister-in-law are there this week and Laci was making dinner—hamburgers on the grill.  The cowboy decided that was preferable to the chicken I was going to feed him!

My Mom had a total knee replacement in Arkansas Tuesday morning.  She is doing very, very well.  They have had her up walking and when I spoke with Mom a few minutes ago, she said she had experienced very little pain so far.  She sounded great and that’s a good thing!

In spite of the snow we got out today and took two walks up the hills into the hay pastures—good for the heart rate to say the least!! 

Michael started working on a project—he is the keeper of his family’s history—old letters, photographs, journals—and has decided to put some order to all the “stuff.”  It will keep him busy while it snows!  I worked in the quilt studio today and enjoyed myself immensely!

That’s what we have been doing—I leave you with some sunset photos taken at Lonn and LoraLee’s the other night:

Just Hanging Around

That’s what we’ve been doing—just hanging around.  Our daughter-in-law comes from a large family and many of them have come to visit—we decided to let them visit without us the last two days. 

When we had the entire ranch and our construction company we bought diesel fuel in bulk from the local gas station in Big Timber, 500 gallons at a time.  We don’t have as much need for diesel now and the station which formerly delivered to us does not offer that service any longer.  The only highway vehicle we now have which uses diesel is Michael’s 1995 truck—Saturday after we returned from Lonn’s Michael noticed we were getting mighty low on fuel.

So, Sunday I made a pot of beef stew and we traveled to town having lunch with Nat and getting diesel fuel. 

I’ve complained many times on this blog about our local grocery store, an IGA.  Not only is the store poorly stocked but their prices are ridiculous.  I really don’t mind paying a little extra for the convenience of the grocery store being close (22 miles ) but I don’t appreciate being gouged! 

I bought butter yesterday, $4.89 per pound at the IGA.  Today, we decided to make a grocery buying run to Billings.  Butter was $7.99 for FOUR pounds at Costco!!!  That alone almost paid for our gas!!  A six ounce bag of pecans at the IGA was $8.00 and they tasted awful.  I got 2 pounds of pecans for $11 at Costco today.  I tried to buy enough groceries to last us two weeks—I bought enough hamburger meat and chicken to last even longer—we will see how long it lasts and how much I have to discard. 

Back home Michael popped some popcorn and we each won a game of cribbage.  Just hanging around!

At Home

That’s a big stick for such a little dog—you should hear Emmi—it sounds as if she is killing that stick!

We’ve had some gloriously beautiful days, very little wind and lots of sunshine.As you can see our driveway hasn’t melted much in spite of the sunshine.

Our daughter-in-law came home from the hospital last night and the hospice team is doing what they do best.  Michael and I have been over there for the last couple days and I’ve been doing what I do best—feeding our family.  We so much appreciate the prayers and thoughts expressed in your blog comments and emails.

It’s Hard

Yes, it’s hard when a family member is so ill and has been given a short life expectancy.  Yes, it is hard to watch her children and husband suffer right along with her.  Yes, it is hard to see all the other patients and families suffering on the oncology floor at Billings Clinic.  It’s just hard, in fact it’s beyond hard. 

My career was as a nurse—I never worked on a patient care floor during much of that career—I was an operating room nurse.  As a result I didn’t see much patient/family suffering—the patients came to us sedated and left us very sedated—I usually never saw them again.  The nurses on this oncology floor are simply put—awesome.  In the face of all the suffering and death they see, they are confident, upbeat, caring, knowledgeable and supportive.  I admire and thank them so much. 

Wind And More Wind

We spent the day in Billings yesterday and decided to stay home today.  There is very little snow on the ground but the wind is absolutely howling—Al was complaining about the wind in Congress—we got wind here. Monday went on record as being the windiest day ever recorded in Billings, MT on that date—67mph wind gusts!  That’s the day we drove our granddaughter’s car home from Billings—it didn’t get very good gas mileage coming home into that wind!  One plus of the wind and warmer temps—we have very little snow.

Our walk was nice this morning before the wind took hold again—there is hardly any snow in our pastures so walking is easy.  Emmi loves being off leash again!  The rest of the day was spent puttering at this and that.  There are things I really miss when in the motorhome—my large capacity washing machine and the dishwasher—both got a work out today!

This afternoon we went into town to take Nat back up to the assisted living facility—he wanted to ask some more questions and see the apartment again.  Nat is understandably having a very hard time making up his mind about entering the assisted living facility.  He has made a deposit on this apartment and may move in by the first of February to see how he likes it, keeping his house for the time being. 

And that was our day here in Montana. 

Taken in September, 2012, looks better than our bleak winter scene right now.

And We Are Home

We left Billings this morning in Laci’s (our granddaughter) car—we needed to get a vehicle of our own plus open up our house—turn on the heaters, build a fire in the woodstove, turn the water back on, etc.  We will go back down to Billings on Tuesday morning. 

Our decision to go south was kind of sudden for me—remember, I had one day to pack the motorhome—well, my Christmas tree was still up at the time.  By the time we got the motorhome loaded that day I was way too tired to take down the tree—so when we walked in today, that was the first thing I saw and the first thing I did—got that tree down and all the Christmas stuff put away. 

This afternoon late we headed back into Big Timber to surprise Nat—Emmi ran in the door ahead of us so she was the first thing he saw—his smile would have lit a room!!  He was so glad to see her.  She will stay with Nat tomorrow when we go back down to the hospital. 

Michael is over there opening our big box of mail as I type this blog—he just made an excited noise—remember when we had the little roll over accident with the jeep when the roads were so slick?  We had to pay the $350 charge out of pocket for the towing in spite of the fact we have Good Sam roadside assistance.  The wrecker came out to the scene of our accident with the sheriff, the fire truck and the ambulance—it’s a small town, what can I say! –so we never had a chance to call Good Sam.  I called Good Sam, they requested a letter and today we received a check for the full amount!!!

As to why we took the rig to John and Brenda’s—Mike and Pat have a lovely lot in North Ranch outside of Congress—they are so gracious allowing all their friends full use of that lot.  Mike and Pat encouraged us to leave the rig in Congress but we knew this trip home might be a long term thing as in a couple months.  We didn’t want our rig on the lot if some of their other friends wanted to use it.  We knew other friends who had used the lot before were planning on being in Arizona.  Plus rumor has it that Rollie fella just might be bringing a rig out to Arizona. 

Thank you all so very much for the kind words, thoughts and prayers for our family—they are very much appreciated. 

Good Morning

Sunday morning we took the rig to the home of our friends John and Brenda in Maricopa and flew to Billings arriving last night.  We have a very ill family member and will stay here in Montana for a while.  I may not be posting as often but I am sure you will all understand.

Another Good Day In The Desert

We were lazy this morning taking our walk a little later than we should—it was rather warm out there in the desert so we didn’t go as far. 

After lunch we drove over to Al and Kelly’s to see their place—it’s amazing what they have done to that little house and the grounds.  Al has also done a tremendous amount of work on the neighbor’s place.  After our tour we sat out in the sun and talked letting Pheebs and Emmi just hang out. 

We stopped by Caryl and Jerry’s but no one was home except for Burrito—the donkey—who voiced his displeasure that we weren’t bringing treats.  Back at the RV park Caryl and Jerry stopped by for just a few minutes for Caryl to show me a quilt she had done.  Caryl does an amazing job quilting her quilts on a sewing machine—she has done a beautiful wholecloth which she is entering in the local quilt show. 

Off to Mike and Pat’s for happy hour—we were just the social butterflies today, weren’t we!

Emmi is saying, “I know that ball is in here somewhere Dad, I just know it!See how big Mike and Pat’s lot is, lots of room!

A Very Good Desert Day

Early this morning I lit a fire under the cowboy, we grabbed Ms. Emmi and took off for a long walk, 2 1/2 miles in the desert.  It felt great to be back to walking without flannel lined jeans, wool sweaters, wool socks, muck boots, etc.!!!   Sand and sunshine is a whole lot better than a cold wind and snow!This Escapees park borders BLM land and out the back gate are miles and miles of trails such as the one in this photo.  There are signs directing you to points of interest such as “the lonely saguaro” or “inspiration point.” 

Back home, Michael unloaded the ATV’s, I fixed some snacks and we were off again—on the same trails but this time with wheels. 

Lonn, here is your Dad trying to figure out that new GPS!!  We managed to make the darn thing track our route with waypoints but now I need to figure out how do get that map onto my computer like John does!

We rode 15 miles, up the hills, down through the dry washes, and back up the hills.  I’ve got to figure out a secure way to take my bigger camera, the little Canon just doesn’t cut it!

Vulture Peak in the distance.

Back home I decided a trip to the grocery store was in order—the Safeway in Wickenburg was a zoo!  By the time I got home it was time to turn around and leave for happy hour at Mike and Pat’s.  It was a great group—Jerry and Caryl picked up pizzas for all of us and guess who joined us—Al and Kelly—it was so good to see them again!!  We spent an enjoyable time chatting and laughing—the pizza was delicious.   Happy hour over we all spread out to our respective homes and pets.  I’m sure Al and Kelly all the way over in Congress heard Emmi screeching—she is very vocal, this ear splitting, high pitched squeal—letting us know being home alone is just not right!!

Rollie and Gina—were your ears burning tonight??

We’ve Again Moved

Can anybody guess where we are tonight???  After striking out with our real estate search in Kingman we decided last night to head on down the road today.  Our dear friends Mike and Pat have two lots in the Escapees North Ranch Park in Congress, AZ—they have a home on one of their lots but the other lot they reserve for their friends’ use.  Let me tell you, we are glad Mike and Pat are our friends—what a wonderful spot!  The lot sits in the corner of one of the streets making backing in a breeze—our long trailer sits on one side of this big lot and the motorhome sits on the other.  A perfect fit!!

We only had about 100 miles to drive today so we didn’t get in a hurry arriving just before 2pm.  Mike and Pat got us situated on the lot and we agreed to meet at their house for happy hour at 4pm.  Pat also called Jerry and Caryl asking them to join us.  We met Jerry and Caryl when we were participating in the cowboy action shooting sport—they owned a home in Lewistown, MT and a lot here in North Ranch.  They eventually decided to spend all their time here in the Congress, AZ area buying a home on some acreage and selling their Lewistown, MT place.  It was so good to see both couples—it feels as if we haven’t been to the desert in a long time! 

We’ve unloaded the ATV’s for the first time since leaving Montana and rode one down to Mike and Pat’s for happy hour.  Ms. Emmi stayed home alone and geez was she not happy when we got back!! 

Last night we talked and talked about the piece of property we both liked but came to the conclusion it just wasn’t the right one—the access issues bothered both of us.  We received a call from the woman who owned the other property we both REALLY liked—her price was laughable!!  They bought that 40 acres at the absolute height of Arizona land prices paying top dollar and expect to get that amount plus some now.  Michael and I can’t imagine land prices ever getting back to that level—maybe we are wrong but at this point in time, we aren’t willing to spend that kind money for bare ground!!

No photos today—I promise to do better tomorrow!!!  

More Driving

After Michael did some more research on the internet, we loaded up the jeep and off we went.  We had found a piece of property, a little far outside of Kingman for me but I was willing to go look.  The young man who owned the property (he had inherited it) knew little about it and we had a three way conversation with him and a realtor friend of his here in Kingman.  We had a subdivision map with parcel numbers and Michael asked about the dotted lines shown on the map going across the upper edge of the property.  Michael asked if it was a power line.  The realtor assured us the dotted lines did not show on his map so it was probably an abandoned power line.  Yea, right, and if you believe that one, I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you!  We get out to the property and there is one of those BIG, HUGE power transmission lines on the upper edge of the property.  Guess we don’t want that one!

Next up was a parcel not far from this RV park—two ten acre pieces—beautiful property with gorgeous views but the road left a LOT to be desired!!  Here are some photos of this piece:

We went back out late this afternoon and walked the property finding the survey pins.  While the property is gorgeous, we both are having doubts about that road. 

While out trying to find the first piece this morning (the one with the power line) we ran across some signs and took a drive—an even more beautiful parcel if that’s possible and the road into this one was good.  We are waiting for the realtor to call us back—no price on the signs. 

And that’s what we did today. 

We Drive and We Drive

We enjoyed a very easy morning, sleeping in later than normal, drinking coffee, surfing the internet.  It’s a good thing this park has good wi-fi, our aircard isn’t working so well even with the booster! 

After breakfast and packing a lunch we were off.  The cowboy and I love to look at property in areas we like—Pahrump, NV was not one of them—Kingman, AZ is one area we like.  Mountains, trees and yes it is a little cooler than other parts of Arizona but I can live with 60 degrees and sunshine in January!  Miles and miles of ATV trails.  The historic downtown is really cool—a great visitors center and museum.  There are lots of restaurants—we had some really good burgers at Mr. D’s today and I resisted having a milkshake!  There are FOUR grocery stores, Home Depot, Wal Mart, Petsmart, etc.  There is even a quilt shop which I used the “despicable app” to find —I wasn’t impressed but it will do in a pinch!

Back at the RV park we discovered the water was shut off—seems they were repairing a leak—it wasn’t long before it was back on and we were in business. 

See the size of our site—nice! 

Before we left Montana Google+ starting backing up ALL my photos on this laptop—that’s a LOT of photos and every morning I would get this little message—“946 (or some number) photos left to backup”—if I inadvertently started this nightmare, I don’t know how I did it.  After reading the blog, Technomadia’s most recent post, I decided to check the usage on our aircard and was surprised to see how much we had used since leaving home.  I was puzzled and wondered if the Google+ auto backup feature was doing it—every time I loaded photos to Picasa, Google+ would auto-backup those photos.  I looked everywhere on Google for instructions on how to disable this and came up empty handed—seems it is common for Google+ to auto backup photos on androids and iPhones but not computers. 

So, I checked with my computer expert, Rick—he also had never heard of Google+ doing backup on computers, just phones but he sent me a few things to check—none of those suggestions worked and he offered to do some more checking for me.  So tonight I turned on the computer after being gone all day and there was this screen telling me Google+ was going to do a back-up and I saw RED!!!  So, I did another Google search—I had all ready done one a couple days ago but found only the phone disable instructions—and up popped this forum of irate people cursing Google+ for installing software on their computers without their knowledge.

Yep, software—and whether or not Google+ is doing it without the knowledge of computer owners, I have no idea—I could have inadvertently clicked somewhere telling Google+ it was OK to do so BUT, you can bet I went straight to my Control Panel and deleted that there software!  Done! 

And that’s it for our day in sunny Arizona!

We Move

We traveled a mere 162 miles today breezing through sin city, waving as we drove by.  Much to the cowboy’s dismay (he doesn’t like tall bridges) we crossed the new bridge which spans the Colorado River and bypasses Hoover Dam.  At 840 feet over the Colorado River—it’s one tall bridge, the second tallest in the US (the Royal Gorge bridge is taller) and cost $240 million to build.  The concrete side barriers are so tall you cannot see over them to the river below even sitting up as high as we do in the motorhome—so it wasn’t so bad (at least I didn’t think so). 

Out the driver side window you can see the river just over the top of the concrete barrier.

A scenic pit stop just after we crossed the bridge.

After getting set up at Blake Ranch RV Park and having lunch we took off in the jeep for a tour.  These guys decided to cross the road in front of us.  I never knew it was so beautiful around Kingman—mountains covered in cedars and pines surround you.  As Al says, we bumped, scraped, rocked and rolled up this little narrow mountain road—we had a blast and the scenery was spectacular!!

This is one of those rare RV parks—they state, “big rig friendly.”  They are most definitely big rig friendly, we did not have to unhook the trailer and I think we could have parked the jeep behind the trailer—a very long and wide site plus their interior roads are nice and wide.  It is a little closer to the freeway than we like to be but it will be OK for a few days.  And John, they take horses!

LED Lights and A Visit

The cowboy spent the morning being a contortionist—installing our new LED lights.  In 2010 while in the Quartzsite area, we checked out the LED lights being offered—our motorhome has mostly fluorescent tubes and in 2010, the price was $40/tube—we bought one!  To replace all the light bulbs in our motorhome at those prices would have cost us about $800!!  Now the LED lights are less expensive, still not cheap, but less expensive—Michael ordered 6 tubes for just a little less than $17 each and today he installed those.  Here he is installing the one under the bathroom cabinet--

Sunday lunch was delicious—I had marinated a pork tenderloin overnight and cooked it on the grill.  We also had Pioneer Woman crash hot potatoes, carrots and green beans—very, very good!

After lunch we took a drive—found what looks like a dry lake bed which went on for miles and miles—there were some guys out there flying a remote control helicopter.

Michael’s buddy Sarge told us to go and visit a friend of his—they used to work for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks together—so we did today.  We knocked on the door, a very pleasant lady opened the door, Michael said, “a guy named Sarge sent us” and she shut the door in our face!!

But, she opened it up right quick laughing—we spent about a hour visiting with Bruce and Diane—they live in Butte, MT when it is not cold and Diane has a daughter living in Las Vegas.  Very nice people, we wished we had gone to visit them earlier rather than the day before we were leaving!

Back home Michael began putting stuff away—the grill, etc. and I walked Ms. Emmi—it may be warm here during the day but when the sun goes behind that mountain, it gets cool!  Of course, not as cool as back home in Montana—that’s for sure!

More Scotty’s Castle

As there wasn’t a whole lot going on around here today I will tell you some more about Scotty.  Scotty became a legend, riding with Buffalo Bill, then touting his non-existent gold mine and finally bragging about the castle he was building in Death Valley.  All this notoriety brought total strangers to the Death Valley Ranch (its real name) where they were entertained by the Johnsons’ and Scotty.  The truth was, Scotty didn’t even live at the “castle.”  Albert Johnson built Scotty a little cabin on another ranch about 4 miles away where he could partake in the pass times he enjoyed and the Johnsons’ didn’t allow—drinking, card playing, etc.

To entertain his guests Albert Johnson built a music room--

This little instrument could be used to play the chimes in the clock tower-

The Johnsons’ began to have so many guests, another music room was built as an addition to the house and Albert purchased a $25,000 Welte organ—the organ could be played by an organist or by using paper music rolls.  Our guide let us hear two songs from the organ—totally delightful!!

Can you tell we enjoyed our tour immensely???

We are leaving here on Monday and Michael wanted to fill the motorhome with both diesel and propane so we went for a little drive this morning.  Back home I did a load of laundry in my little Splendide washer/dryer—it dries now, I am so thrilled!!  Ms. Emmi got to take us for several walks and tonight the cowboy took me out to dinner.  Pretty good day I would say!  Oh, and the cowboy changed out our propane regulator.