Boise to Burns

The trip from Pocatello to Boise on May 29^th was very scenic. The highway followed the Oregon Trail along the Snake River. We were surprised how pretty the Snake River was winding its way through canyons and across valleys. The surrounding mountains and hills were desert, but in the valleys there were many farms and ranches.

We enjoyed our overnight in Boise. We went out for dinner at nearby Edge Brewing Company, which was highly rated on Trip Advisor. The beer and food was very good. We shared some Snake Bites and a Scottish Edge (a hard-boiled egg wrapped in pork sausage). We enjoyed beer cheese soup and I had a “Grown Up Grilled Cheese” sandwich (an amazing combination of smoked gouda, Swiss, seasoned cream cheese and blue cheese melted on grilled buttery sourdough with roma tomatoes, roasted garlic and avocado). It was really yummy.
After dinner, we sat outside at the picnic table and played a new card game called “Sequence”. It was a warm beautiful evening, but our DWs (darling wives) beat us 6 games out of the 11 we played.

We arrived at LaPine State Park for two nights, just south of Burns, Oregon. It’s a nice park with full hookups and set in the tall pine trees along the Deschutes River.

On Saturday, May 30^th, we had lunch in Burns, and then drove to the High Desert Museum. The high desert included parts of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, all west of the Rockies.  It was quite interesting with sections on the history of the pioneers, Native Americans, and the wildlife. Then we made a quick visit to the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.

 

Tomorrow we head south and west to Medford, after stopping by Crater Lake National Park on the way.    

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Wyoming and Idaho

The four of us left Boyd Lake State park on Tuesday morning, May 26^th, and headed up the road towards Rock Springs, Wyoming.

 

We stopped for lunch at a rest area along I-80 and enjoyed partly cloudy skies. There was plenty of snow on the nearby mountains, but they were shrouded in clouds.

We arrived In Rock Springs and celebrated Day 1 of our Alaskan adventure with grilled steaks, in spite of more rain showers and a muddy KOA campground.

Today we began the day with bright sunshine and a stop in Green River at Penny’s Diner for breakfast. We headed west on I-80 a short distance before turning north on highway U.S. 30 for about 200-miles before connecting with I-15 and driving 30-miles to Pocatello, Idaho. None of us had ever traveled this route on U.S. 30 before and it was beautiful. There were wide valleys, rolling hills and everything was green with the recent spring rains. This short-cut, avoiding the Wasatch Mountains and Ogden, Utah traffic, was well worth the trip.

Tomorrow we head west to Boise for an overnight, before going on to Oregon.   

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Cloudy, Cold, Rainy Colorado

After spending the winter and early-spring going east and west along I-10, from Florida to California, we ended up in Las Cruces, New Mexico on April 29^th. We got on I-25 for the first time since September, seven months ago, and headed north to Albuquerque to spend a week. We visited some very good friends there, before heading north again on I-25 for Colorado.

We arrived at Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado Springs on May 8^th for a 12-night stay. It was nice coming back to Colorado Springs to visit family and friends and to take care of doctor and dentist appointments.

However, the weather has been atypical Colorado spring weather. What happened to their 300+ days of annual sunshine? It rained, or was foggy or misting nearly every day in Colorado Springs. We only saw Pikes Peak and the sun one day. Thank goodness we missed the hail storms they had the week before our arrival.

   

We’re spending the Memorial Day weekend at Boyd Lake in Loveland, Colorado. On Tuesday, May 26^th, we depart on a 3-month long trip to Alaska with our friends Vince & Lisa. We’ve been planning and anticipating this Alaska road trip for a couple of years, as they retired last October, and it’s their first big retirement road trip.    

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Birds & Butterflies

We arrived a day early in Mission, Texas on Thurs, Oct 24^th. We are spending two weeks visiting Julie’s sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry, at the 2,600 acre Bentsen Palm Development, a development on the edge of Mission. We stayed in Retama Village, which has a mix of single family homes, RV port homes, and RV lots with large concrete pads and a casita (one of which we rented from the lot owners who live in Minnesota).   

 

The Mission area is where many “Winter Texans” head to for the winter months with their RVs or to their winter homes here in south Texas. Mission, adjacent to McAllen, is in the Rio Grande Valley and there are several wildlife refuges. Hundreds of different bird species and nearly 300 of 500 butterfly species migrate through the area. We especially enjoyed riding our bicycles to the “World Birding Center Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park” (the top birding sight in the U.S.), about three blocks from our RV site, to see many different species of birds and butterflies.

Green jay

Golden-fronted woodpecker

Great kiskadee

Queen butterflies

Last Sunday, we drove to Port Isabel for their annual World's Championship Shrimp Cook-Off festival, where we enjoyed sampling the various shrimp dishes.  Then we drove across the bridge to South Padre Island to see the gulf and enjoy a drink at a beach side bar.

We joined Cindy and Terry in celebrating their 9^th anniversary last night at dinner.

We leave here tomorrow morning and start working our way east to Florida, where we plan to spend much of our winter in Key West.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Viva Las Vegas

We left Albuquerque on Sunday, Oct 13^th and arrived in Las Vegas on Mon, Oct 14^th after an overnight stay at Meteor Crater RV Park, Arizona, the half-way point, and one of our favorite RV parks.

We spent the week at the Oasis RV Resort on the south side of Las Vegas.

On Wed, we went to the musical Jersey Boys, at The Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino, about the story behind the music of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. It was very, very good and we’d recommend it to anyone our age that grew up in the 60s and 70s.

On Fri night, we went for dinner in Margaritaville, in the Flamingo hotel, because we’d heard that Jimmy Buffet sometimes shows up for an impromptu performance when he’s in town. We didn’t see him though.

 

We had tickets for his concert on Saturday night at the MGM Grand and took in the pre-concert pool party at the Flamingo. It was our first Jimmy Buffett concert and we had heard a lot about his fans (called parrot heads). We thought we saw Jimmy Buffett, but it was a fan dressed up like him. 

 

The Jimmy Buffett concert was amazing and we really had a good time on Sat night. We left Las Vegas on Sun morning and headed across Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, towards Mission, Texas (near McAllen) to spend a few weeks visiting Julie’s sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry, who manages a RV resort there. We’re really looking forward to two weeks of hanging out and relaxing after the 1,500 mile drive from Las Vegas.    

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

We arrived at the Balloon Fiesta RV grounds on Wed, Oct 9^th for four nights. Julie’s Mom drove down from Colorado Springs to see the Balloon Fiesta and stayed with us in our motorhome. Our friends Kris & Jan, their daughter Stacy and son-in-law Brett, my sister Marcia, brother-in-law Mike, and their friends Bob & Joanne from Tucson all got together to see the balloon launches, evening glows, and fireworks.

We all enjoyed the balloon festival and getting together in the evenings for happy hour, dinner and conversation. Next, we head to Las Vegas for a week. We've got tickets for a Jimmy Buffet concert on Saturday night at the MGM Grand.

 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Breaking Blog – Albuquerque

We arrived at Pueblo State Park on Monday, Sept 23^rd for 4 nights. We got our boat winterized at Rocky Mountain Boats and took care of a few other things before heading to Westcliffe on Friday afternoon. We spent a really nice weekend with our friends Vince & Lisa and put the boat away for the winter.

On Monday, Sept 30^th, we headed south to Albuquerque. We went to Kirtland AFB to the FamCamp but they were full and had campers waiting for a spot in their dry camping area. Most of the campers were there for the Balloon Fiesta, which began on Saturday, Oct 5^th. We wanted a full hook-up, since we were staying for 9 nights before we headed to the Balloon Fiesta RV grounds. We stayed at Isleta Lakes RV Park on the south edge of Albuquerque.

We met our friends Kris & Jan for dinner during the week and invited them out to our motorhome to watch the Broncos-Cowboys football game on Sunday. It was a close, but good game.

Kris & Jan are big fans of the TV program Breaking Bad, which was filmed entirely in Albuquerque. The TV series has won many Emmy awards over the six seasons it was on the air. Julie and I missed watching Breaking Bad on AMC, so we purchased the first 5 seasons to watch it. We watched all of the first and second season and 11 of 13 episodes of the third season in a week. Kris & Jan took us around Albuquerque to see where much of the filming was done and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing those places from what we had seen so far in the TV series. Maybe you’ll recognize them too.

Julie’s Mom is driving down from Colorado Springs to see the Balloon Festival with us. She has never been to the Festival and we’re looking forward to her visit.

Steve & Julie Cornelius