We have been living in Athena for a year and full time traveling for over 6 months. RV life definitely has its challenges (unless you are Elsa). Every grocery store you go to has a different layout, finding the nearest CVS to get prescriptions, finding some some place to get a haircut (unless you are Lee), managing mail & packages or finding a Costco! Then the daily life in the trailer… we have a small washer/dryer combo unit so it takes 3 hours to do a small load of laundry, there is no dishwasher (which Lee has finally come to grips with), you mop a spot of the floor in the trailer and wait for it to dry and then everyone moves to the clean area to mop the other side. We constantly have to monitor tanks to empty and flush, monitor propane to make sure you don’t run out, checking closets/drawers, cabinets for fallen items after travel day. On travel days we have to put everything away as an RV is a rolling earthquake, securing everything in cabinets, wrapping the coffee machine and putting it on the sofa, and taking down any decor is essential for a drama free travel day. And then, every time we hitch up the trailer to the truck we check and cross our fingers that lights are working, that wires have not been chewed by critters, that brakes all work. Oh.. and then driving over the pass in the Rocky mountains hauling 17,000 lbs! We thank our travel angels daily.

But when we get to our destination….it’s the little moments…. it’s sitting at a roof top pub enjoying a cocktail with a view of the mountains or hiking a long trail up to get an amazing peaceful view. Sometimes finding a little hole in the wall winery and learning about the wine in that region. Seeing some of our National Parks, historic places or small towns that we might have never seen otherwise is so much fun. Those moments that we get to check off things from our bucket list is an amazing feeling. However, the best moments are spending time with long time friends and family and meeting new people.

After saying good-bye to family and new friends we met in Colorado we headed west to Utah to visit a long time friend. Having lunch with him and then sitting on the front porch eating ice cream while we caught up on life was one of those little moments. While in Utah we took a day to check out Fremont Indian State Park. It’s a place we have never heard of, but is worth a day of your time. This historic park is full of artifacts, petroglyphs and pictographs left behind by the Fremont Indians over 1000 years ago. We spent the day hiking around the park and didn’t know exactly what we would be getting into, a little rock scrambling. Lara got her ankle caught in the rocks going up and Lee finally had to come down and almost had to remove her hiking boot to get free. Eventually we made it to the top and started the hike down.

Once again we had to say good-bye and we headed to Wyoming to visit a friend of Lee’s. We only spent a couple days to visit and have dinner, but it was a good visit.

Next we headed south to Nebraska where we spent a couple days to visit Lee’s cousin and family. While were there, we relaxed, caught up on life, and relived childhood memories. Lee also had some of the best smoked ribs he had ever eaten cooked by his cousin’s daughter. Another one of those little moments that reminds you to enjoy life. Hugs and more good-bye’s as we headed to South Dakota to check off another bucket list item…. Mt. Rushmore!

Standing in front of Mt. Rushmore, learning the history of how, why and what it entailed was pretty amazing. We learned about the granite that it was carved in and that the surrounding granite on either side is not stable enough for carvings. In fact, Jefferson’s face was originally started to the left of Washington, but when they realized the poor quality of the rock, they had to blast it away and start over on the right side. It took about 14 years to build with zero worker fatalities. Mt. Rushmore was named for a New York attorney, who was visiting the monument and asked what the name was of the peak was and his tour guide joked that it was named for him. The name stuck.

We were only in South Dakota for a few days and we quickly realized that it is a state we will put on our list to come back and spend time exploring. It’s a beautiful state with so much to see. It is one of the 4 states we have never been to in all our travels, so we got to put another pin in our map!

When we left South Dakota, we headed east to see what other adventures await us….

this is why we chose this lifestyle for this moment in time.

If you ask Elsa, she would tell you that her parents are crazy and there are days we don’t disagree with her. We have discovered she is smarter than we are, she somehow knows the day before we travel even though we try to never do things the same way. Each morning we travel, we load her into the truck, she walks back and forth in the back seat looking out either window and we listen to the morning meow show. When that’s over, she settles into her bed for a long kitty nap.

We packed her up one morning and headed towards New Mexico. We made it to Albuquerque to spend a few days with family and relax, and she got to meet new people. Albuquerque has so much to do and see, and we didn’t have time to do everything we wanted to. One thing that was on Lee’s bucket list was the National Museum of Nuclear & Science History, which he loved and could spend an entire day at. One evening we went with family and we took the Albuquerque tram up the mountain side and had dinner at the restaurant at the top. The views were stunning and the company was great.

After saying good bye, we packed Elsa back up for a drive to Colorado Springs for a few days. We loved Colorado Springs and the beauty of the area. It is some place I think we could call home some day, but we still have so much to explore. One day we spent hiking at The Garden of The Gods, and if you have ever seen that, you would understand why we fell in love with the area. The best part of RV life is that you get to see so many fun little tourist stops. Colorado Springs is no exception and we spent another day touring the Ghost Town Wild West Museum. It was a fun little hole in the wall tourist trap. Elsa loved having a few rest days laying in her bed in the sunshine while we explored the area and she was not thrilled with us when we loaded her back into the truck to drive to Longmont CO.

After a long travel day (driving a 40 foot 5th wheel thru Denver makes for a long day), we arrived at our campground in Longmont, a few miles from Lara’s family. Elsa was thrilled when we told her that we would be there for 2 whole weeks! Although, she didn’t care for the 6 inches of snow and cold the 1st day we were there. The 80 degrees and sunshine on the 2nd day was more to her liking. We spent some time visiting family and friends, and Elsa got to meet a lot more new people. We checked off another item checked on our bucket list which was hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park and a Passport cancellation stamp for our National Parks Book. After lots of great food, laughs and catching up it was time to head out , Elsa got a little snarky when we loaded her back into the truck for another drive day.

As we were preparing to leave another snow storm was heading our way, so we had our first major pivot day and decided to head south for a bit to avoid it before we headed west into the Rockies. We stopped overnight at a Love’s RV Travel stop and the next day drove over the Rockies, crossing over Monarch Pass at almost 12,000 feet. At the top we saw some snow flurries and a turned over Amazon semi truck. Coming down that pass we were extremely happy to have the truck we have and an exhaust brake and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the bottom. A few more miles and we made it to our next campground, Blue Mesa of the Gunnison. Imagine how excited Elsa was when we told her that we were spending 3 weeks in that mountain campground! There were chipmunks everywhere! It was the best Kitty TV station she’d had since we started this adventure. She watched her entertainment while her parents explored the area. We met up with some friends we had made in AZ and made some new friends, from Austin, TX. There was a couple great dinners and happy hours involved a few nights. Of course, we had to find some great hiking while camped in the Rockies. We checked out Black Canyon of the Gunnison National park, it was stunning and not a much visited National park. As we hiked thru the park we hiked thru the remains of the huge wildfire they had last year we got to see Mother Earth healing herself. Another great hike was the Dillon Pinnacles that was a 4 mile hike with incredible views at the top. We also spent some time in the little towns of Gunnison, Crested Butte and Ouray. All beautiful mountain towns with fun shops, restaurants and amazing scenery. Elsa was enjoying her sunshine and chipmunk TV until we loaded her back up in the truck and played a very dirty trick and took her to the V-E-T. She had been pulling some hair our and scratching at her hindquarters and we wanted to rule out anything serious. The vet told us she thinks it is some anxiety that is causing her to over groom and sent us home with lots of Feliway which we now spray everywhere before we travel. A few more days of chipmunk TV and we loaded her back up in the truck with another snarky meow to head west to Utah to visit a long time friend.

Thru all of this, at the end of each day, our little rescue kitty crawls in our laps and gives us lots of purrs and kitty biscuits.

We have been married almost 36 years, but learning to back a 40-foot 5th wheel into a small camp spot around trees will teach you all sorts of new communication skills. With lots of practice, followed by some good wine, we are slowly getting the hang of it.

We left Longview, WA, on March 1st and headed South. With an overnight stop in Rogue Valley, OR, we then made our way to Grants Pass, OR, to spend a few days. While in Grants Pass we spent time with Lara’s cousins and had a great visit. They recommended a great winery where we met Leo the welcoming kitty and tasted some amazing wines. After leaving Grant’s Pass we continued South and tested Hercules and Athena as we drove thru the Siskiyou Pass, our first mountain pass with a truck and 5th wheel. They both performed wonderful, but knew it was just a warm up for driving thru the Rockies.

Getting into California, the weather started to warm up, which made us very happy. Our 1st night in CA we stopped just outside of Redding at a beautiful little RV Park. As we were setting up a lady came by and asked us if we would like some limes (turns out they were lemons) and proceeded to hand us a huge bag of fresh lemons off her tree. Fresh squeezed lemon juice freezes nicely for lemon drop martini’s on super hot days, which we needed when we got to Southern CA where we spent 2 weeks in a heat dome.

As we continued south, we stopped for a week just outside of Sacramento and hit a bucket list item, the California State Railroad Museum. We have driven the I-5 from Bremerton to San Diego many many times and always said “we need to stop at that museum”, but time never allowed. Now we had the time, and loved sightseeing Old Town and the Train Museum. My uncle would have loved to have seen that and we could have spent days reading everything. After the Train Museum, we couldn’t be in that area and not go to the Ghiradelli outlet and get our favorite milkshakes.

We continued south with a stop at our first Harvest Host stay for the night. Harvest Hosts is a large group of wineries, breweries, museums and other small business’ that have room for a few RV’s to spend the night, all they ask is you spend around $30 to support that small business. We stopped at Vista Ranch Winery where we met lots of people, chatted with people who worked there and had some great wine. After tasting and enjoying talking with everyone, we went back to our RV to an amazing sunset.

We finally got to Southern CA, just outside of L.A. where we spent a couple weeks to relax and visit family. While at the campground in the middle of the hills we discovered that the Pacific Crest Trail went thru that area. So we set out to hike some of that trail. When we got there, a woman with her dog was coming down and warned us of a rattlesnake on the trail up a few switch backs. We hiked a little way up and decided to let the Rattlesnake continue his nap and choose another trail. As we passed a sign warning of us cougars, we continued on up, then saw large cougar prints going across the path. We hiked for a 1/2 hr or so, and then decided we were going to respect the wildlife that day and leave them alone.

It was time to finally head east. A quick stop in Palm Springs and continued on to Southern AZ. We spent some time in Casa Grande where our first order of business was to have an RV Mobile Tech come check our brakes for a squeaking noise. Once he check everything out and fixed our dragging brake problem, we were able to explore the cute little town. Moving on to visit some friends about an hour south of Tucson, AZ, we spent several days relaxing and catching up and playing with their fur babies. While there we spent a day in Tombstone, which was a fun little tourist trap and spent another day at the Pima Air & Space museum. After a great visit, we headed north to Cottonwood, AZ for a couple weeks. We loved the area and did some hiking at the Grand Canyon, visited Sedona, Jerome (an old mining town) and saw Montezuma’s Castle; we loved the Northern AZ area. While in Cottonwood, we made some great friends and enjoyed happy hour and watched baseball with them. We are finally getting to stop and see all those little places that we would pass on road trips, but had time restrictions so had to pass.

Next stop and post: heading east to Albuquerque, NM, then north to Colorado…

I wanted to rescue a cat. On September 17th, 2023 we went to the Fancy Cat’s Rescue after seeing this 2 1/2 year old tiny kitty named Angelica on Kitty Tinder. Knowing that our life was crazy, and we traveled a lot and going to travel more as time went on, we needed a cat that could adapt to crazy life and go with us.

When I walked up to the small cage and this little 8 lb kitty was trying to dig herself a hole under the blankets and shaking from nose to tail. Something told me I had to take her home and make her feel safe. The rescue had no real information on her except that when she came to them, she had a litter of kittens. They put her in our carrier and we headed to the car with our shaking little girl.

Once we got her in the car, she calmed down a little and stopped shaking and I put my hand in the carrier so she could smell me and she proceeded to ram her nose into my hand to have her head scratched. On the way home we discussed a new name for her new start. We settled on Elsa… We love Disney, I am Norwegian and she is a princess, it fit. Once we got her home and opened the carrier, she bolted under a spot in our bed we couldn’t reach. We let her be, knowing that a new and scary place, she would need some time. She eventually moved to hide under our dresser, we could reach under and scratch her ears, but she was still shaking and terrified. She would come out to eat a little and run back and she spent her first couple of weeks hiding.

We decided that we really needed to get her to the vet for her first check up. We have had a string of vets that I had been unhappy with so finding a vet that would be best for her was another daunting task. We finally settled on a cats only hospital near our apartment. The day came for her appointment and it took both of us over a half an hour after shutting the door to our room to catch her. She bolted around the room, as we tried to catch her and she broke everything in her path as she tried to hide. I cried, she cried and we realized we had not adopted a cat that would be take our crazy life in stride. So much went through our minds… were we the best home for her? Would we traumatize her even more? Could we do this? What was best for her? Once we caught her, we headed to the vet.

I immediately loved the vet tech… he truly was the cat whisperer. He was able to calm her and was able to pick her up. ( we still can’t pick her up) I loved the new vet just as much. She took her time with us and her… let her do everything on her terms and spent so much time answering all our questions and concerns because there were a lot. The vet was even able to clip her nails! However, the vet visit didn’t go as well as any of us wanted. She had bad teeth and needed all of her molars pulled. She told us they were pretty bad and she was in a lot of pain. It’s $350.00 a tooth to have cat teeth pulled in case anyone is wondering. So we scheduled another appointment for blood work to make sure she was healthy enough for surgery and then an appointment for surgery. So we took our tiny little kitty and a prescription of gabapentin home.

The 1st time with the gabapentin mixed with tuna fish went well and she fell over sleepy so we could get her back to the vet. However, anyone with kitties know how smart they are and how well their memory’s are. We weren’t so lucky after that. She remembers that smell and my treat motivated little girl is not at all interested in tuna fish any more.

The day of surgery, we struggled to get her to put her in her carrier, but finally got her in and dropped her off at the vet for the day. On the way home I cried and worried about her all day. I knew at that point we had to make it work and giver her a safe place to grow. She had really wormed her way into our hearts.

During her surgery the tech calls to let me know that she would need more teeth pulled than originally thought. She came out of surgery and did great. She was annoyed that she couldn’t have her treats for a few weeks but we started to see her real personality for the first time.

She has the sweetest little personality and looks at you with these amazing green eyes. She just wants to be loved but something has happened to her that has made her afraid. She shows some signs of abuse, but we just don’t know. After several weeks of slowly working with her, we were able to pet her and scratch her ears. We have several little games we play to interact with her and she is slowly (very slowly) starting to trust us. She loves to play “hide the easter egg”, since she is so treat motivated we started to sprinkle her treats (aka – Easter Eggs) everywhere we want her to go like up her cat tree, up on the bed or on her blanket. She wouldn’t get up on anything, she would just hide. Her favorite is “string toy”, she loves to chase and loves us to pull her string toy around so she can chase it. Every morning by 5:30 she is sitting on her toy waiting for me to play with her. We have to play before before breakfast. She is also a soccer kitty, we roll her little foam soccer balls around for her to chase. Every so often we find little soccer balls she has lost behind or under something. She does not cuddle but loves to play “horse”, muzzling her face into our palm and muzzling it with her gums. Her newest game is “creepy cat”. If you have ever seen the horror movies where mom is doing dishes and the creepy doll that is on the bed is suddenly sitting on floor behind the mom…. she will be sleeping in another room, and suddenly I turn around and she is sitting right on my heels staring at me. I never even hear her or her collar jingling.

One evening we were sitting on the sofa and she hopped up in between us and layed down and let me pet her belly. That was such a huge step for her. A couple months later I walked into the living room and she was curled up on Lee’s lap! A cat we thought we would never be able to even pet! She has learned the sound of Lee’s video game now, and when she hears it, she comes to hop up and curl up on his lap. And she has become a mama’s girl. Anywhere I walk, she follows me, I can’t walk from the fridge to the sink without her going those 2 steps with me. Right now she is curled up next to my leg with her face buried in her blanket. She has such a dainty little meow but will let you know when she wants something, usually a treat.

It’s been a year now and we have a ways to go still, but she has come further than we thought we would ever be. We have had to work with her at her pace and on her time. We still can’t pick her up or cuddle her, and if we pet her with 2 hands, she will still jump back for a minute… but she will curl up on our laps and purr and sleeps with us at night.

We learned there is adopting or rescuing… the cute and playful kitties and puppies get adopted much more quickly. The timid ones, the scared ones, the older pets, the ones with trauma or medical issues that are hiding in the back of the cage often get overlooked or returned. They really need to be rescued. We look at our sweet little princess and know that she would have been a tough cat to adopt out. With her trauma and medical issues…she is taking a lot of time, love, money and patience. It has been an investment but the returns have paid us back in more ways that we ever imagined. I wanted to rescue a cat and that is exactly what we did.