Arrived in Tucson!

Today we drove 250 miles to Catalina State Park where we're staying for
1 night. Since check-out isn't until 2pm., tomorrow we're going to check
on the space we're going to rent while we're here. Even though it was a
"balmy" 95 today & forcasted to be 98 tomorrow, we're glad to be back.
We love Tucson! Funny short story...we were watching the news when they
were talking about how it's going to be in the 90's all week. One of the
co-anchors said, "now that it's cooled down, you can do pretty much
anything outside." LOL!
-Laura

Return Trip to Sandia Peak Tram

On our first pass through Albuquerque, last November, we made three attempts to ride the Sandia Peak Tram. Our first try, a Tuesday, was maintenance day. Wednesday, our next try, was too windy and they shut the tram down. Being the resourceful people we are, we decided to call for our third try, Thursday. Yes, indeed they are running, "and its prime rib night at the High Finance Restaurant", was the response we got from the customer service person! We're there!

However, it gets dark early in November. We ended up riding the tram in darkness. The view of the city lights was spectacular and we experienced a wonderful dinner at 10,500ft. We really wanted to experience the tram during daylight hours.

Fast forward to now. We made our way up Tramway road for our daylight ride on the tram. Guess what? Closed till 5pm for maintenance! We were assured the tram would be running on Wednesday. We also double checked the weather to make sure nothing would stop us :)

We finally got our daylight run on the tram. It was a beautiful clear day and you could see for hundreds of miles in every direction! The picture above is the tram coming up to meet us for the ride back down. Albuquerque is in the background below. We had a nice lunch at High Finance and explored the top of the ski hill on the eastern side of the mountain.

There were plenty of blue and green runs on the Sandia ski area. Perfect for beginner skiers such as ourselves. It's only 500 or so miles from Denver to Albuquerque so the occasional weekend trip here would be a definite possibility....

Although, I hear Colorado some has some good, quality skiing too!!!!!

-Rich-

Missing Denver Already!

The fall colors were just starting to pop. The snow was starting to pile up above 8,000ft. The days were warm and the nights were crisp; We're missing Denver and we just left 2 days ago!

We caught this pic of Pikes Peak with a fresh blanket of snow on it as we pulled out town on Sunday.

The house will be done in about 6 month's. It seems like a long way off, but this time last year, a year on the road seemed like a long time too ;)

-Rich & Laura-

Arrived in Albuquerque

Last night we were in Vegas, baby! Actually we were in a Wal-Mart in Las Vegas, New Mexico. We found a spot way in the back which made our night quieter than some RV parks. The best part was that it was free. We were going to stay at an RPI park that advertised themselves as being 8 miles east of town, but actually wound up being 20 miles, dumpy, and without wifi. Rich needs wifi for work stuff. So we headed out of there, and went to the othe side of town to the American RV park, where we stayed when we were here in November. Once we got settled in, we headed for our favorite store that we haven't seen in a LONG time....Trader Joe's! Even though we'll soon be in Tucson, where there's multiple stores, it was still fun. After picking up a few things, we treated ourselves to a 4 pack of steaks from Costco. It's going to be a good dinner tonight!

-Laura

Wrapping up Denver; Contract Day

Saturday was our last full day Denver, and we made the most of it!

The day started out with a breakfast meeting with the owner of Maverick Ranch. We had a verbal agreement on the job situation, from our last visit back in July. We now had to finalize it all and agree on start dates, arrival dates in Denver, areas of responsibilities and benefits (it was going to be a long meeting!)

We were able to nail down all of the specifics. I really ended up with more then I expected coming into the meeting (How often does that happen in today's job market?) Sorry, details are confidential ;) Suffice it to say my broker history and previous success was taken into account as well as relocation cost and transition time for Laura to find a position in Denver, next spring; We'll be well taken care of during the transition from traveling nomad back to "normal" life. Although I've been making the transition from broker to "employee" since July, my official start date is October 2nd. Just in time to be swept off to Baltimore for a Natural Food Products Expo!

After that long meeting, it was off to Stapleton for another long visit with a builder to see if we can nail down a house and move-in date.

Laura and I weighed all the pro's and con's, what we wanted, where we wanted to be, lifestyle, proximity to work and budget. It all led us up to the Stapleton "New Urbanism" development.

I would call us "picky" buyers. We aren't looking for the suburban hell "McMAnsion" surrounded by strip malls, which is all they seem to be building. A mountain home(our original thought), would create too much of a commute and be too far from "stuff". A downtown loft won't work for us, we need a garage for bikes and toys. We are looking for something small and high quality, within a very specific price. The builder we found has everything we are looking for that fits in our budget. We spent some time walking around Stapleton and the weekly Farmers' Market. We talked with residents, vendors and shop owners on the area and it has a great community feel to it! In all the places we've lived, we have never really known our neighbors. That will change at Stapleton as the houses don't face a street, but a central court yard that 4 houses will share. Garages will be in the back of the house. Oh yeah, almost forgot, NO yardwork!!

The builder we are working with has the model we are interested in with completion dates around mid March to mid April. That would be perfect for us. We have to coordinate our move with the arrival of our stuff from Michigan. It looks like we can have the house done, our stuff from Michigan in and waiting for us in time for my April 16, 2007 start date at the Maverick home base! We like that idea much better then living in the motorhome while we search for a place after our arrival next spring. One of the best things about the location, 7 miles to my office, which means I can ride my bike to work on nice days(and Denver has a lot of 'em!).

So, here it is, our little piece of heaven in Denver :) It won't actually start to become a home until early next year. They may try and get the basement dug and poured before the ground freezes.


That little hump you see in the background, behind the equipment, is the western edge of Central Park. When completed, it will be the second largest park in Denver and will have bike path's that should connect directly downtown, 1 block from our home, how great is that :)

After almost a full day of negotiation of one type or another, we were ready for a drink! My boss from Maverick took us to Sushi Den, downtown, as a celebration of our new partnership. It's supposed to be THE place for sushi in Denver. It was probably the best sushi we've had since last year in Santa Barbara!

We can't believe our 2 weeks in Denver is up already! Between looking at houses (over 50), negotiating contracts, working and mixing in a little bit of fun, we were busy all day, everyday. Now its time to make our way to Tucson. We plan to take 2 days to get to Albuquerque, with a Wal-mart stop Sunday night. We'll spend 3 or 4 days in Albuquerque for some much needed R&R before landing in Tucson for our 6 month stays and full-time jobs for both of us!

This stop in Denver was definitely a "mission accomplished" as we were able to finalize everything we needed for a smooth "landing" next year. Ironic, as Stapleton, in its previous life, was Denvers main airport!!

Rich & Laura

Dinner with Fred, lunch with Stephanie, etc.

Whew! We sure have been doing a lot of eating out while we've been in Denver, and it's all been excellent. One of the best new things about Colorado is the fact that, as of July 1, 2006 all restaurants are smoke-free! I might not like this if I was still a smoker (quit June 10, 1998), but as a non-smoker, it's wonderful. Maybe because I was a smoker I'm more sensitive, but it'd be a tough choice between sitting next to a screaming kid or a smoker.

Anyway, we've been so busy looking at houses, we haven't had time to do much else because we're so tired at the end of each day. But we finally had a couple of days off and called up my Uncle Fred, who's living in Denver, working for Crickett cell phone company. I found a restaurant in Lodo (lower downtown, the hip & cool area of Denver) that was actualy reasonable and sounded good, named Venice Ristorante. During their happy hour (5-7pm. & 9-close), they have a happy hour menu with small plates that are each $3, and glasses of wine at $5. We each had 2 glasses of wine, split 2 orders of an appetizer, salad, and a pasta dish. It was very good.

Yesterday I took Stephanie, from Maverick Ranch out for her first real sushi meal. I got to know Stephanie when she came to Michigan for the D&W (a grocery chain in Grand Rapids) Food & Wine show in Grand Rapids. Rich & I had gone when he worked for another beef company, and we'd also been a few times with Maverick. Usually Rich hands out samples, while I wander around eating and getting drunk. The time that Stephanie came, we had a blast together & have kept in touch ever since. When we came to Denver in June, Maverick put on a fabulous dinner where they served Rocky Mountain Oysters as an appetizer. Stephanie encouraged me to try some. I agreed as long as she agreed to have sushi the next time I was in Denver. She'd had sushi before, but only the cooked stuff. So yesterday I picked her up and off we went for raw fish! We had sweet shrimp, eel, tuna, salmon, a spicey tuna roll, a california roll. Stephanie ate everything except the tuna and sweet shrimp. We had a great time and I learned all about team roping.

This morning Rich left around 8:30 to meet with his boss, Charlie for breakfast to discuss more details about his job. It's now 11:30 and I'm going a little stir-crazy without a car.

-Laura

Company picnic and a bike ride

This morning Rich and I decided to take a bike ride around Stapleton to get a "bike feel" for the neighborhood. It's a good feel. There's not a lot of paths (that we can find), but the streets are easy enough to ride on, especially for weekend morning rides to get bagels or a Starbuck's. We came back to the moho for a quick shower, then we were off to the Maverick Ranch company picnic. They put on a wonderful picnic, complete with pork chops and 2 kinds of sausage. One sausage was chicken, and the one I ate had bits of garlic inside. We talked with a lot of people who gave us suggestions for places to look for a house, best sushi, places to see, etc. By the end of the day, my head was swimming with directions and intersections. There will be plenty of time to explore it all when we're back next spring.

Ok....we need opinions on sun. If we go with the place we really like in Stapleton, we have a choice of courtyard locations. Wherever it's located, the family room, kitchen & master bedroom will have morning or afternoon sun. Which one would you choose, and why? Thanks!

-Laura

A glimmer of hope in the house hunt

A couple of days ago we drove through a new development in Denver called Stapleton. It's on the site of the old Stapleton airport, which closed in 1995. Today we went back to look at builders' models, peruse the weekly farmers' market, and just get a feel for the area. The first thing you learn upon stopping at the visitors' center is that this place is going to be HUGE! There's shops, big box stores, office buildings, apartments, lofts, homes, duplexes, and bigger homes. There's a place for every price range from rental apartments and places to buy from the low $100k's to over $1 million. It doesn't look like a subdivison (which we wanted to avoid) but like a town. It has that feel too. Today there were people outside everywhere. The proximity to downtown and Rich's job (6 miles) doesn't hurt either.

We may be idealistic, but we're going to try to live with only 1 car and a scooter. A lot of that will depend on where I get a job, but we're willing to try. Ever since we watched the movie, "An Inconvient Truth" by Al Gore (with our wonderful Canadian friends, Rick & Sue, who's country hasn't ruined the planet), and seeing the retreating glaciers in Glacier National Park, we really want to do our little bit to help decrease the effects of global warming. We know we're just 2 people and we could probably do more, but every little bit helps in the end. It also kinda makes you wonder how things would be different if Al had won (as he really did) the presidential election instead of GW. I like to think the country would be in better hands.

-Laura

A Shout Out To All The Folks' Checking in From Hitch Itch!

We have to give a big Bag-It-Tour welcome to all of the readers' that have joined us from the Hitch Itch site. Our readership has gone from about 40 day to almost 70 per day!

Hitch Itch is a site with links to TONS of other Rv'ers journals. Full-timers, weekenders, wannabees, anybody with a passion for the open road and a journal has links here. You can check them out by clicking the link below!



For those of you that have just joined us, you've caught us on the tail end of our adventure, but we still have a way to go. Hopefully, you'll follow along as we make the transition from the road back to a "normal" lifestyle.

Here is a quick synopsis of our adventure so far, but you'll have to go back and explore previous entries for all the crazy details ;)

In January 05, we made the decision to sell our house, leave our jobs(Well, Laura left, I tele-commuted part time) and seek out a new life out west. However, we had no idea where we wanted to be. We decided a full-time adventure on the road would be the best way to figure out where we wanted to live.

We spent most of the spring and summer of 05 packing, selling the house and planning the trip, we were finally ready to hit the road in October of 05. We ended up in Las Vegas just before Christmas. We stored the coach and flew home to be with family in Michigan over the Christmas/New Years holiday.

To start 2006, we headed to warmer climate! January through March we circled in and around Tucson, Phoenix, Quartzsite, Yuma and Palm Springs. As spring approached we started making our way up the California coast.

We spent most of the spring and summer circling around the Pacific northwest. We ended up in Denver in July for the Maverick Ranch annual brokers meeting(I was their Michigan representative). They had an offer for me I couldn't refuse. If we wanted to consider Denver, they a job for me in marketing and sales!

As we pondered where to live, Laura made a proposal to a drug treatment center in Tucson(we loved it down there last winter!). Sierra Tucson is in expansion mode and they were impressed with Laura's experience in the field. They look forward to having her fill-in in three different departments over the winter!

Now, you can see the quandary we faced. I had an opportunity in Denver and Laura created an opportunity for herself in Tucson, at least for the winter. To our relief, this was not a problem for the folks at Maverick! If we commit to moving there, the job will be available in spring of 07'. In fact, they are willing to have me start upon our arrival in Tucson, via tele-commuting and monthly visits up to Denver.

All of which leads us to today. We are in Denver, I'm working(mostly on coordinating my position and responsibilities while in Tucson) and we are searching for areas we like and looking for houses with our real estate agent. We start heading to Tucson on September 23rd. We will arrive in Tucson on September 30th. We'll be spending the in between time in Albuquerque, NM. I will be digging right into work the first week of October. I'll be heading out to a Natural Food show in Baltimore, MD. Laura starts work on October 9th, and Sierra Tucson says they'll have no trouble providing Laura with a full-time schedule :)

Now that you've been brought up to speed, we hope you'll continue to follow along!

Rich & Laura

Rock Mountain National Park

Friday, we decided to take a much needed break from looking at houses. We took a drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Here we approaching Estes Park, a little resort town at the "base" of the park. It sits at about 8,000 ft.








This will probably be the extent of the fall colors we will experience this year. Fall is by far our favorite time of year and the BEST time of year in Michigan. It's one of the things we will most about our previous home state.










The mating season is in full swing and elk viewing and photo opportunities where abundant!














Here are our elevation stats at the top of the park. Well, not actually the top because we went around another bend and actually made it to 12,150 ft!

For reference, our base camp in Denver is at 5,335 ft and it was 79 degrees an hour before our arrival at the summit. Yes, we did catch some snow at the top. However, we didn't stick around to enjoy it, the wind was blowing around 50mph which made it hard to stand in one place and it felt like any exposed skin was being sand blasted by the snow!

This is an interesting picture because it clearly shows three distinct zones. I didn't take the time to research the names of the zones, sorry :)

The trees stop growing at about 10,000 ft. The top zone starts at 12,000 and the peak you are looking at tops out around 14,500. There's not a lot happening in the zone in the middle. So, our non-scientific terms are the tree zone, the dead zone and the polar zone :)





It's still hard for us to imagine that we are going to be living just about an hour from all of this ;)

-Rich & Laura-

Banging Your Head Against a Wall........

.......and searching for Real Estate in Denver......

One in the same?

For the past couple of day's we've been exploring areas in the Greater Denver area, both with our real estate agent and without, for a place to call home when we land next spring. The market here is very strange. Some areas are depressed but prices are not dropping, just holding. Other areas are hot and prices are going up fast. A majority of the places we looked at were empty (folks just get tired of waiting and move on?) Yet, according to our real estate agent, people aren't really negotiating on price. Go figure that situation out? It's a good thing we're not buying now, just trying to figure what area we like and a general idea of what we can get for our money.

One thing we know for sure, we can rule out living anywhere in or near Boulder(it reminds us so much of Ann Arbor, MI which we just love) There is only one major road leading in/out Boulder enroute to Denver (BAD traffic). The houses our agent showed us around Boulder are C-R-A-P (I had a much more appropriate word but decided against its use!) It seems the favorite past time of homeowners in Boulder is to sit and watch their property values go up. In the mean time, they don't do ANYTHING with their houses such as updating, cleaning, painting, maintenance and yard work!

despite being frustrated with the real estate search, we've really been enjoying the city of Denver. We are not used to a bright, vibrant and active downtown. Keep in mind, we have Detroit as our reference ;) There is just so much to do and see in town. The city is clean, the people are friendly and there are paths and parks everywhere. If you're bored in Denver, it's your own fault!

In the meantime, we keep searching and learning more about the place we're eventually going to call home :)

Rich & Laura

Exploring Denver

I don't have any pretty pictures for this post because we haven't taken any yet. We got into Denver on Sunday afternoon and chilled. Yesterday morning Rich took the car & went to work at Maverick, leaving me to do....nothing. Yes, I could have done dishes, cleaned up, ridden the path behind our RV park, but I was feeling lazy & painfully aware that these are my last few lazy days before I go to work in 3 weeks. I did manage to do 2 loads of laundry & secure us a parking spot in Tucson, less than 5 miles from where I'll be working. It's technically in Catalina, about 5-10 miles north of Tucson. It's close to our favorite part of Tucson where the good shopping, mountain biking & Mt. Lemon is. The montly cost, $350 is much less than the $525 everyone else around there was quoting me. It's more than the campground where we have reservations ($315), but that was also 25 miles away in the middle of nowhere.

Yesterday we met our new real estate agent, Jodi Keiter-Wilson, who was referred to us by our old agent, Konnie Shaw. I had originally picked out some homes in the Golden area that I thought looked interesting. The appeal was that they were "out in the woods", so there was no landscaping or lawn to speak of. One house, was just beautiful & I'd convinced Rich to do a drive-by on Sunday evening. Holy Hill People!!!! Not only was this house 23 miles west of where we are now, but it was a good 10 miles up a windy canyon road. It was 57 degrees when we left, and 46 when we got to the house. The house did look nice, but there's no way we'd ever get up or down that road in the winter.

So Jodi and I developed a quick "Plan B" where she picked a few houses in areas she thought we might like, but the emphasis was going to be on areas, not on houses since we won't be in the market to buy until at least May '07. The good news is that Denver's market is only doing slightly better than Detroits, so it's still very much a buyers market. We actually liked the first house we saw. The best part of it was the protected land & moutain in the back yard. The bad part was that it was literally across the street from an elementary school! That may sound fine to some, but when you are childfree by choice, it's not such a good thing. So on we went, driving by some houses, going in others until we'd seen 8 total. At the end of the day we were tired and hungry, so Jodi dropped us off while we went to get a pizza for dinner.

-Laura

W-O-R-K; Denver Colorado

Greetings from Colorful Colorado(the slogan on the sign entering the state)! Denver to be exact.

We arrived on Sunday and spent the afternoon setting up, washing the car, RV maintenance(fluid levels), catching up on laundry and other fun and exciting chore type things.

Today, I actually got to go to what will be my new office for w-o-r-k (still have a hard time saying or writing it). I have to ease myself into it, 4 hours for the day, but work none the less ! I've got strategic planning meetings set for Tuesday and Thursday; We'll be figuring out exactly how I'm going to be incorporated into the system while down in Tucson for the winter;) My company is being amazingly cooperative with our situation since Laura committed to working in Tucson before I accepted the job in Denver.

We also have some time planned to spend with our real estate agent searching areas in which to land next spring. Today we'll be exploring Golden, CO and Tuesday we'll be looking at the Boulder area; These areas are the top two contenders, as of now!

Of course, we have to leave some time for play too! we plan to hit Rocky Mountain National Park while we are here. We'll also spend some time exploring the miles of greenway(bike paths) they have all over the city!

There won't be much down time in the next two week, but that's how we like it!

Fun and exciting times, for sure!

-Rich-

Busy In Salt Lake City

After "roughing it" in Glacier, Yellowstone and Teton National Parks for the past 3 weeks, it was nice to be back in civilization!

We pulled into SLC on Tuesday afternoon and had a lot on our calendar. Grocery shopping, hair cuts, a/c service on the coach(Freon leak), road testing scooters and visiting friends.

Errands don't make for interesting entries, so let's move right to the fun stuff, visiting friends!

Cockatoo Street; Cari and Gregg

Snuggles favorite place to visit! We visited Cari and Gregg on Wednesday evening for dinner. The girls did sushi and guys (and birds) did pizza! As usual, Snuggles was completely freaked out by the noise and craziness of all the birds at the cockatoo house. Here is Snuggles sizing up a much bigger Louie, who was quite comical. Louie would take chopstick and toss them in the air and then laugh hysterically. Snug just quietly watched the whole scene.


Gregg is an accomplished, self taught guitarist. I've been itching to get a guitar and learn how to play. I spent some time picking his brain on guitars and what too look for. Gregg showed me his skill with 80's hair metal(which I grew up on, works for me!).

After my quick lesson and messing with a bunch of Gregg's guitars, I've decided on an electric guitar. With our limited space and not wanting to torture Laura as I learn, I decided on this Steinberger travel electric and a personal amp w/headphones. This way, I torture no one but myself during the learning process :)

So, my eBay search is on!

Jerry & Lyne

We met Jerry and Lyne a few weeks ago, up in West Yellowstone. They pulled into their site and three big labs immediately piled out of the door! I think if we were to have a dog, it would absolutely be a lab! We were over there quickly to meet the dogs and their owners!

It turns out they had enough of California and ditched it for a much quieter life in Layton, UT. They travel in the RV when they can. They love wine and had labs', we had a lot to talk about! They knew we were headed to SLC and suggested we look them up when we got to town.

We met up with them on Thursday evening. They BBQ'd steaks and fresh corn for us(yum) and we chatted over wine (lot's of it!) Of course, I had to roll around with dogs; Buddy, the chocolate lab (14 years old!), Jake and little Mookie both Yellow's, and brothers!




They also recently purchased a horse and Lynne invited Laura for a visit and ride on Friday morning. I was forced to stay back and wait at the coach for the mobile a/c guys to fix the Freon leak.

Karen & Rich

We met up with Karen & Rich on Friday evening. We met at a brew pub in downtown SLC. Karen is originally from Michigan and we've known her for quite a few years. She is slowly trying to recruit everyone she knows to SLC :) It almost worked on us, except for that little thing called a J-O-B!

We didn't take the camera to dinner. Here is a pic of Karen and Rich from 2004 when we met up with them in Paris to watch Lance capture his 6th Tour D' France!



Every time we visit SLC (3 times on the BIT) we always run out time before we run out of things to do and friends to visit! Good thing it's only 540 miles from Denver to SLC. There should be plenty of opportunities to visit, once we have a permanent base in Denver next year.

Today we make our way to Denver, taking 2 days to get there. We'll stop overnight in Rawlins, WY, for rest and diesel. Monday will be my first day of "work" as I go to an office for my first time. That should be an interesting experience :)

-Rich-

Wrapping up Teton, NP

After receiving the news we wouldn't be able to do the moose hunt(with camera, of course) on horseback, we decided to spend Labor Day over at Teton Village bombing down Rendevous mountain on our bikes!

We forgot to pack the camera, so we were left to take pics with our cell phones. So, sorry about the picture quality.

Laura catches me as I expertly wedge my front tire in between 2 rocks and darn near go over the bars. That would have made a better pic, but I managed to save it before going over.








There was a small skills park in the middle of the downhill run. We had fun doing the stunts. The phone camera was a little slow, but this is actually a see saw where you ride up one side and it swings down and you ride off it. It looks more difficult then it actually is!










We each ran about 4 different runs. By mid afternoon, we were hot, tired and hungry. The village had a tram that runs up to 10,500 ft and our lift ticket included a ride on the tram.

We enjoyed the view on the ride up and we sat at the top for a while and watched the para-gliders run off the side of the mountain and float away. Don't worry, neither of us are adventurous enough to attempt that :()

Here is a pic of the Jackson valley from the summit. Yeah, I know the quality stinks but the view was just awesome!


We packed up this morning and shot down I-15 to Salt Lake City. Darn, it's HOT here! We've been used to 68-72 degrees for the past couple of weeks. It was 92 when we arrived in SLC!

For dinner we hit the Happy Sumo for Laura's sushi fix(it's been about a week and a half). Upon our return, there was a knock on the door for a windshield repair. Nothing like having dinner paid for for 15 minutes worth of work!

Good News.....Somewhat Bad News........

Bad News....

We called the horse place to reserve "our" horses for our moose search on Tuesday. Guess What!? Labor Day was the last day they were renting horses for the season :(

Oh well, no need to stay an extra day afterall. We are going to go ahead and make the drive to SLC on Tuesday as originally planned. At least we'll have an extra day to visit with friends in SLC!

Good News......

I did enough windshield repairs and sold enough No-Wet to cover our campground expenses and all of our activities this past week! The only hits to the bank account this week was for food and gas. It's those kind of weeks that make us think we could stay on the road longer.......But our time is closing in on us fast...... And we have new and exciting opportunities in front of us!!

Snake River White Water; Jackson, WY

Our first white water trip on the Flat Head River in Glacier left us both wanting more! The Snake River Canyon, here in Jackson gave us the opportunity to experience some bigger water.

The flathead was predominately class 2's, with a couple of "3's" thrown in to make things exciting. The Snake River, on the other hand, was mostly class 3's, with a couple of 2's thrown in to get your heart rate back down ;) Our kind of water, we had a BLAST!

The on-shore photog got a great series of us on the biggest rapid on the trip, may have been a class "4", don't quite remember. Laura and I are on the left side of the boat!

Approaching "Big Kahuna" Rapid

Here we go!

IMPACT!

Just a little bit wet!

Today, we are headed over to Teton village. They have a Tram/ski-lift package on special for $15, all day use. We are going to take the mountain bikes over, bomb down the ski hill a few times, take the tram up to 10,000 ft for lunch and finish up by bombing down the hill a couple more times! It's too bad you can't take your bikes all the way up to 10,000 and ride down from there, that would be quite a ride :)

We still want to get over to Alpine and take the horses out again to try and get a look at the moose and her calf. We extended our stay one day, through Tuesday to try to get a glimpse of her..........

stay tuned..........

Horseback Riding; Jackson, WY

Laura found a place in Alpine (little town SW of Jackson) that had horse rentals, unguided, for $55/full day. That is GREAT deal! We've done riding in North Carolina and Albuquerque, NM; They've always been guided trips where you plod along in a long group line. Now, this is OK with Rich, mister horse novice, but not Laura, miss horse "expert". So the thought of being able to go on an unguided trip was too much for her to pass up.

Here's Laura posing with her horse, Pal.



Here I am with my horse, Major!

These horses were outstanding in every way. Best handling horses of any other riding excursion we have done!


We wound our way up some pretty steep single track trail to an overlook of the town of Alpine (pop. about 300).

After about an hour and a half up, this was our view overlooking this massive town ;)

We packed lunches with us, and they had a grain bucket at the top for the horses. We sat enjoyed the view and our lunch for a while.


Here is Laura on the way down the single track trail.











Here my view coming down from the overlook.








The ranch hands at the stable told us to be on the look out for a moose and her calf and to make sure if we saw them that we did not get inbetween the two of them. Yes, wildlife opportunity! So far we've seen black bear, elk, mule deer, eagle, Osprey and fox all we need to add is a moose encounter.

Well, we didn't see the moose. However a guy who was out there alone, who we met up with back at the stable, claims to have saw them right near the trail that comes down from the outlook!

We lasted 4 hours, which was about all our butts could take! We found out, on our return, they have a half day rate of $35. I think we might come back Monday, skip the lunch and lingering at the Outlook, and search out the moose and her calf!

-Rich-

A Nice Dinner; Jackson, WY

The day was pretty uneventful; surfing, blogging, clean inside the coach, two more windshield repairs(Yes! Covered tonights event!) and chilling out. The evening, however, had a nice dinner in store for us.

We've been watching our dining budget pretty closely and what better way to celebrate keeping it down then by adding to it :)

We decided to check out The Granary at Spring Creek Ranch in Jackson Hole. We picked it out of a local dining guide based on the sample menu they had in it. We called to make sure you could bring your own wine in (you can), its a great way to keep the cost down as restaurants usually double what you would pay retail in a store. The corkage fee was only $10, very reasonable, especially for a resort town.

Here was the view of the valley and the Tetons from our table. On the way up to the ranch we saw a pair of Osprey and a Red Fox, but were not quick enough with the camera!

We brought along one our favorite Archery Summit Pinot's we picked up on our last visit to McMinnville. We shared a wonderful scallop dish to start. For main courses, Laura had a Halibut with mushroom risotto and morels. I had Asian spiced duck with the same mushroom risotto. Both dishes were fabulous and paired just about perfectly with our Oregon Pinot Noir.

Bring on the holiday weekend..........