DAY 5

We made it out of NV without gambling, well at least not with money. We took the gamble of heading through Lake Tahoe instead of driving on I-80. We gambled and won. The drive to and through Lake Tahoe was beautiful. The trees were huge compared to those we saw at the USAFA. They had bright green moss that grew over the trunk and down each branch. The green was very vibrant. It was very congested around the lake and gas prices were way over the $3 mark. It was also the first true test for Rocky (our truck). There were 3 passes that we had to pull and the last one seemed to go on for about 3 miles. The grades didn’t seem to be a problem for anything or anyone but me. Driving that close to the side of a mountain was a bit stressful. There will be more therapy in the near future.

We saw first signs of spring here in CA. Big bugs… yuck! With the bad there is good. Things have been very green and lush since we crossed the border. I can see why people love this area. It is just sad that so many decided to build as much of the natural landscape is gone.

Traffic was intense as we approached Sacramento. We pulled through there at about 8:30pm and it seemed like 8:30am. Good thing we weren’t pulling a big trailer or something. Good thing for us diesel is about $.20 cheaper than gas here in California. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

We are now at Travis A.F.B. FamCamp. This park is much smaller than what we are use to but it is very beautiful.

We have lot of fun stuff planned in San Francisco so we will see what all we have time to check out. We are planning our trip to San Francisco using a book buy DK. I LOVE it, makes it very easy for me to plan our trip to the bay. www.dk.com

DAY 4

We pulled out of FamCamp on Hill AFB about 1:30pm. Did you know even on vacation you still have to do a crap load of laundry?? Our friends surprised us while we were fueling up on the way out of town. They posed so we could get a couple of pictures together. Then they crossed the line… they snuck money into the truck to try and pay for dinner the night before. We didn’t find it until we got to NV. We’ll get them back…it’s on Scott and Katrina!

I did manage to find a local scrapbooking store to visit. I did really well too. Brad was happy I only came out with a little bag. The mission was to find something about UT. I found a cute little sticker. The other stuff was just too cute to pass up.

We drove about 400 miles today and ended up at Winnemucca, NV in the Wal- mart parking lot.

I-15 takes you around Salt Lake and it was absolutely gorgeous. Huge mountains, water never ending and even some sail boats taking advantage of the beautiful day. “That is a lot of water,” Mikaela said “You could get lost in all that water”. You have to love a child’s logic sometimes. Zac wanted to drive over to the Morton salt mine we passed to dare some one to lick the mountain of salt. See previous statement about child logic.

We drove past the Bonneville Salt Flats. We thought about opening up the truck and see if we could top the world’s fastest land record but we thought Thor would probably freak in the trailer. Nevada is what we had expected so far. We plan on stopping in Reno for lunch then we should make it to Travis AFB before dinner time.

One side note:
If you are driving through WY and you find a Forrest River spare tire cover it’s ours. It seems the 55 mph winds swiped it off the back of our 5th wheel. We just figured it out this morning.

DAY 3

So today we planned on spending the day with our friends here in Hooper, UT. We got ready and began to pull out of FamCamp. At this point we are not hooked up to the RV. Two men flag us down to inform us that we were in their reserved spot. They we extremely nice and apologetic even though they did nothing wrong. Turns out, the guy that helped us park and told us to grab any open site forgot to inform us that the building across the way has a reservation sign up for the camp sites. So needless to say we had to move to an open site. Luckily Brad and I have become really fast when is comes to hooking up the RV so in no time we had the RV moved and re-hooked up. The people that we moved for were really nice and if we were not leaving tomorrow, we could have stayed where we were but the sites here are nose in. We informed them that we were glad they caught us when they did because we were on our way out and would not be back until late.

We drove through Hooper, pronounced Huper (I think) by the locals, to get to our friends. They invited us to their son’s birthday party so the kids got to run around and eat chocolate cake. I think this has been the highlight of their trip so far. We then headed to the Hill Aero Space museum. We ran out of time to walk through the different exhibits inside but we were able to walk the static display. We saw some really cool planes to include a B-52, B-1, and a C-123. As we were heading back to the trucks, an elder volunteer for the museum invited us into the chapel. He explained the history of the chapel and spoke of some of his flights and time served. When I say elder, I mean touching into the 80’s easily. He was a very spunky and kind man. Just a great little bit of information to appreciate those who served many years ago for our freedoms.

We headed over to Scott and Katrina’s for dinner. The manly men fired up the grill (keeping their eyebrows) and began the BBQ. We had great food and great company. We have been fortunate along the way to meet really great people. The kids all got along and had a great time playing on their 1 acre yard just east of the Salt Lake. The area is lush and trees are blooming already. They have a smorgasbord of animals ranging from miniature goats, a miniature horse, two dogs and two cats. Zac had a great time just digging in their huge dirt pile and with Nathan (their 4 year old son) as his side kick. Nathan followed Zac around as though Zac was his hero. The girls played with Lauren (their 6 year old little girl) while us adults relaxed and enjoyed the company. They have promised to visit us in AK and you better believe we will hold them to their word. They have a great set up and we totally enjoyed our stay here in Huper (Hooper) UT.

So we now say goodbye to some really great friends that we will miss until we meet again. Goodbye surprisingly beautiful Utah and on towards California.

DAY 2

Well we got up this morning and packed up the house. We needed showers so we drove to the Fitness Center on base. We were warned about the wind in WY but NOTHING could prepare us for what we experienced today. Trying to walk into the wind was a work out before entering into the building. We stopped at the BX for some souvenirs and asked if it was always this windy here and they laughed at us. The lady said “this is nothing”. We were amazed at the base housing. It was some of the nicest I have ever seen. It reminded me of the housing on Ft. Sam in San Antonio. We got a picture of one of the more amazing houses we say. Turns out it was a 2 star general’s house. It was hard to believe that it was one house.

We hit the road about 11am and started towards UT. The wind was constant and strong. The warnings reported 55 mile an hour winds. Pulling an RV up hills with 55 MPH head winds are not the best making for a fun road trip. Brad backed it down to about 55 and it kept the truck from pulling over 2500 RPM. It kept downshifting out of overdrive so in some areas we got low double digit gas mileage. I guess it could have been worse…like Kansas we had passed through a few weeks before.

The scenery was getting better; it was just the wind that made it slower than what we would have liked it to be. As we approached UT the mountains began to change and we saw really cool rock formations. I was expecting UT to be flat and desert like Moab cuz that’s how I remember it. It is gorgeous. The hills are turning green and look like velvet. The mountains are very close and still snow capped. Once we got to Hill AFB, our friends Scott and Katrina came over to help set up the house. It is great to see them. We are all twins separated at birth. We are spending Sunday with them then we will head out towards CA on Monday.

DAY 1

We got to a slow start but, we finally got started on our adventure today. The past few days have been a blur and we are as ready as we are going to get.

We had to stop in at Monica’s Taco for one last meal of their famous fish tacos. They were better than normal. Probably because we know they will be our last for some time. After lunch we headed to our favorite Starbuck’s in Barnes and Noble to get the best Americana concoction, well our version that we have perfected. While we were there we walked over to see if the Milepost had come in. There were none on the self, so we asked one of the employees. Turns out they got 2 in, but both were set aside for other customers as special orders. They offered to order 1 for us but we explained we were heading out today and that would not work. Lisa (the Barnes employee) called one of the customers who had it on hold to see if they would mind if we could take theirs and she would order a new one for them. The stars were aligned just right cuz we now have a 2007 Milepost to travel through Canada.

We made it to F.E. Warren AFB, WY today. F.E. Warren is located in Cheyenne, WY. Let me tell ya about finding FamCamp in the dark, with a large truck and trailer in tow, on a base that you’ve never been to before. It makes us appreciate how nice FamCamp was on the Academy. There is one other RV here and it is 22 degrees. We plan on checking out the base in the morning. All of the building we saw (in the dark) were Plantation style. It looks like they have had some fresh snow but the roads were clean.

So far so good and we will end on that note. Tomorrow it’s on to Utah.

2 days and counting

So, we are down to 2 days before we leave…and time is flying by.

March 13th, I was able to surprise Brad with tickets to the Last of the Breed concert, Willie Nelson, Meryl Haggard, Ray Price and Asleep at the Wheel. We were some of the youngest in the crowd and we are not young anymore, at least Brad isn’t :).

We successfully delivered my truck to have it shipped. The only catch is we did not go to Dallas, TX as we were told. Brad was planning our route and found that there is a VPC (vehicle port of call) in St. Louis, IL. After map questing it, he found it was actually closer than Dallas, plus it is a straight shot back home. The ride home was a bit cramped, 2 adults, 3 kids and 1 large dog in a Ford Taurus but we stopped at Bob Evans restaurant along the way so life was good again.

Well, I am no longer an Archivers employee. Saturday was my last night and I was greeted with a bouquet of balloons, a cake and a handmade card with a generous gift card from my coworkers. My family even brought in a bouquet of flowers. This has definitely been my best job ever. Between the coworkers and customers that I was able to build friendships with and the fact that it was a scrapbooking store, it couldn’t get any better.

Sunday was our going away party here at the TLF (temporary lodging facility). It was so nice to get together with friends and reminisce on the past 3 years we have been here. Brad fired up the grill and we chowed down on some damn good BBQ, and of course we had Bird Dog BBQ sauce.

We are doing a partial DITY move so we had to weigh the truck and RV dead empty then we will reweigh full to be reimbursed for the cost of moving household goods. SO we emptied EVERYTHING out. Can you believe how much stuff we have crammed into our RV in the past year?? Luckily the kids were troopers and helped to unload the RV. With the RV completely empty it was time for the fun task of cleaning from top to bottom, then reloading the RV. We rented the TLF for a week so we were able to slowly unload and reload.

Tomorrow is our last day in Colorado Springs and it will be filled with running last minute errands. Brad worked his last day here at USAFA on Monday so he will out process from this base tomorrow. He will then work on finishing Rocky and the Becker Bunk house (RV) and fingers crossed we will be hooked and ready to go by early evening.

The Count Down...

So another month has passed and boy have we been busy! We are now 18 days out from our 4000 mile voyage to Alaska. We made a last minute trip to Tucson, AZ at the end of February to say goodbye to friends and family before our move. The timing was great as my grandparents were also visiting from Michigan. The kids got to help Grandma bake her famous Snicker Doodle and Cowboy cookies. We also got to have dinner with my Aunt Lavonne (my mom’s sister) and Uncle Paul. It was nice visiting everyone, but it was hard not having our RV. We towed out my ’73 Jeep to store in AZ so the RV had to stay in Colorado. Not having it showed us how spoiled we are. We traveled quite a bit in the past year and had always taken it with us.

We caught up with the Weinstiens for a night of visiting. I worked with both of them at a restaurant called Carlos Murphys, a place I worked at for WAY TOO long.

Another event we got to participate in was AMARC’s first family day. AMARC is better known as the airplane graveyard. Both my parents work there as did Brad when we lived in AZ. That was probably Brad’s favorite job he has had to this point. It would be like Zac working in a Lego store.

The kids also got to spend a lot of time with their cousins. No matter how long it has been since the last visit they always pick up right where they left off and have a great time playing together. It’s a shame they don’t live closer. If Cindy would only move to Alaska….

Brad was able to spend some time with Ashley and Michele. They are getting excited to come visit us in Alaska. Michele spent the entire week with us, stomach flu and all. As strange as it may sound, Brad felt lucky to be able to care for her while she was sick. Normally he just gives sympathy over the phone. Ashley had to baby sit, but we got to spend some time with her as well.

We took advantage of our time and hit our favorite places to eat such as Eggies, Gus Balone’s, Ajo Café and Yokahoma Rice bowl. It will be a long time before we can eat there again. And of course we had to hit Taco Cabana for breakfast tacos in NM.


We are now in the chaotic mode of gearing up for the big move. Our household goods (yes, household goods NOT in the RV) were packed and loaded last week. We had a total of 5400 lbs of goods. Most of the weight turned out to be books and collected rocks :). We found out that we are NOT taking my Excursion truck to Denver to ship to Alaska like we had been told, but it does start with a “D.” It just happens to be Dallas, TX. SO, with 3 weeks left we are now driving to drop off Brad’s old Ford pickup then to Dallas to drop off my truck. We hope to see some friends who live in TX. The last week will be spent prepping the RV and truck that pulls the RV. We are spending a few nights in TLF so we are planning a goodbye party and finish out processing from this base.

Brad and Zac had a winter survival class at the beginning of March. The temperature at the trail head was -5 degrees with a wind chill of -20. They snow shoed about 2 miles total through several FEET of snow (over a foot of new snow fall that day). They spent the day digging snow caves, learning winter navigation and signaling skills, and then hiked back out. I did the same class 2 years ago and if I move wrong I still have residual pain.


Zac and Brad were presented a commanders coin and certificate for a good deed done. They dug out a RV and truck of a couple that had tried to pull into FamCamp through all the freshly fallen snow just before Xmas. The gentleman was very appreciative and wrote in to the commander. The commander thought it was worthy of recognition and presented Brad and Zac commanders coins at the monthly staff meeting. Brad just considered it taking care of our own.


We will be updating the blog again after our trip to TX. I’m sure we will have some new things to add as we do every trip. Then, we will be adding each step of the way.