Full-Time DreamCatchers

Chuck Donates 10 Gallons of Blood

Today Chuck was honored with a plaque by LifeSouth Community Blood Centers in Citrus County, Florida to celebrate his having donated TEN gallons of blood, one pint at a time. As you can see by the picture, Chuck is pretty proud of his achievement and says he is looking forward to donating his next gallon. […]

Hoodsport, WA

We arrived today in Hoodsport, Washington, a beautiful little (really little) town in Washington State that sits on the Hood Canal, a 600 foot deep fjord that is home to the giant Pacific Octopus and renowned Hoodsport shrimp and some of the best oysters in the country. Wow. We didn’t know that until we got […]

25th Anniversary

How do you like our bike jerseys? I bought Cheryl her nice new “Wedding Gown” and my “Tux” for this special occasion – our 25th! We were married on the Queen Mary and just had to come back to celebrate our 25th there. What a great ship. I even took my Beautiful Bride to a […]

Cycling Long Beach around the Queen Mary

City of Rocks, NM

We are currently camping at City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico. Still in New Mexico?! you say? Yep, that’s right. For some reason, we just can’t seem to get out of this state (well, except for a couple of weeks in extreme West Texas). There were a lot of things we wanted to […]

Florida’s Highest Waterfall

Today we visited Florida’s Highest Waterfall in Falling Waters State Park located near Chipley, FL in the northwestern panhandle of the state. Wait a minute – did I just say FLORIDA’S highest waterfall? Yes, I did. Who knew, right? The state of Florida is about as close to sea level as one can get without […]

Chuck, Chiisai & Shadow at Falling Waters State Park

It’s a matter of Good Grooming

August 3rd, 2009

Shadow

The Double-C (now that's a good sign)

Hello, Shadow here. What a day I had! It started off with me having to get up early. Now, I’m not an early riser and usually try to sleep in as long as my bladder will allow, but today Mom and Dad had me up and out the door by 8:15 am. As soon as I got in the truck I settled in to my special seat up front and decided I could get the rest of my beauty sleep while we drove along, but before you could say, “treat!” we had arrived at our destination. Now, that was a surprise, because we usually drive for a few hours before stopping somewhere. At first I was eager to see what was going on, but as soon as I got out of the truck, my super canine smelling ability let me know this was a place where dogs get groomed. Yikes! Did I ever tell you how

Taking a coffee break with Dad

much I don’t enjoy baths or haircuts? Well, I don’t. But I don’t have much choice, do I? It’s not like I can drive myself away (well, I could… but they won’t give me the keys).

So, I spent the morning getting a bath and a haircut and my nails done. That’s probably my least favorite part of the whole thing, but at least Mom and Dad don’t let them color my nails. Just because I’m half-poodle doesn’t mean I’m ready to go all fru-fru and silly-looking. We “devil-dogs” have an image to uphold!

Fortunately, the people at the Double-C Grooming and Boarding in Klamath Falls, OR were great! Since I’ve been on the road as a Full-Time RVing Dog, it’s been ruff going trying to find a groomer as good as my pal Cathy back in Florida. She absolutely knew her stuff and was really, really nice too! (We dogs can always tell when a human is a true dog lover.) But the groomer at C&C was pretty good too. She was quick, gave me a great haircut, and was nice too! In fact, everyone at the Double-C is pretty cool. The place is nice and clean and one of the best grooming, training, boarding facilities I’ve been to since my old hometown. So, if you’re ever

Cookies and Cream - Yum!

in the area, make sure to check them out. I give ‘em 4 paws up.

After my haircut, Mom and Dad and I had a little treat at the Coffee Paws right there in the parking lot. Whipped cream on dog cookies. Can’t beat that! Of course, I always save my cookies for later, but whipped cream can’t wait.

Wow. Now I’m beat. Time for a long nap to make up for my early morning!

Until next time – Happy Tails!

It’s been a long time, again.

July 30th, 2009

Cheryl

Wow. It’s been a long time since we last posted our whereabouts or what we’ve been up to! Since we left Fallon, NV we’ve been to Susanville, CA for a couple of days. We then drove to Lassen Volcanic National Park and stayed for an idyllic week (no phone, no internet, no tv – just beautiful mountains and nature) for a week. We continued north to Burney Falls, CA for a day and then west to Redding, CA for a couple more. When the heat was too intolerable to stay any longer, we moved on to what we hoped were cooler temperatures at our property in California Pines while staying in nearby Alturas, CA. We had a little respite from the heat-wave, but it was still hotter than we liked and we drove further north to Klamath Falls, OR – where we are right now. Of course, we saw and did a lot of things during the past month that we will be blogging about soon. Chuck and I plan to post yet more photos and thoughts on our recent journeys now that we are someplace with a little more reliable internet connections and electricity to power our laptops.

Klamath Falls, Oregon

July 30th, 2009

Cheryl

Today we arrived in Oregon! This is the first time we’ve been back to one of our favorite Northwest states since 2003. We are currently staying in Klamath Falls, at Kingsley Airfield: a very small Air National Guard base that happens to have an equally small, but quaint, RV area with full hookups. The price is right, and so far this looks like a great area to explore, so we’ll stay here for a week at least, then see what we want to do and where we want to go next.

While we’re here we plan to visit Crater Lake National Park which is about an hour to an hour-and-a-half’s drive north of our location. We’ve read a lot of good things about it, and seen a lot of magnificent photos, so we’re excited to finally see it in person. Chuck would like to ride his bike around the rim as that seems to be one of the things we’ve read is popular to do. Looking forward to the weekend and seeing the deepest lake in the United States.

Been on the move

July 24th, 2009

Chuck

Sundial Bridge

Since my last up-date we have been to Susanville and went biking on the Bizz Johnson Rail Trail. We also stayed in Lassen Volcanic National Park. We hiked through Bumpass Hell and Cheryl climbed Lassen Peak. From there drove to Redding and I rode my bike over the Sun Dial (glass) Bridge. After leaving Redding, we saw the beautiful Burney Falls and we are now in Alturas, CA near our California Pines property.

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The Shoe Tree, Reno, Virginia City, and more

July 8th, 2009

Chuck

We are in Fallon, NV at the NAS. We came here to catch up on our blog, post some photos, and rest, but we really haven’t accomplished a lot, except take more pics and seeing a lot more. Cheryl did run a 5K on base and I did get my 100 miles in on the bike. Cheryl did a blog about The Shoe Tree so I won’t bore you here. To see more of the Giant Spider you have to see the end of the Virginia City photos (click here).

The Shoe Tree

July 6th, 2009

Cheryl

In front of the infamous 'Shoe Tree'

Today we took a little side trip from Fallon, NV via Highway 50, better known as “The Loneliest Road in America“, to a little spot about 50 miles east and near Middlegate, NV. This is the site of “The Shoe Tree” which we first spotted by happenstance back in 2003 when traveling by RV for the first time on our way ‘Out West’.

Since we were so close to this unique little spot, we decided to revisit it and leave a little something this time – a pair of Chuck’s old tennis shoes. We wrote our names on them (including Chiisai’s who was with us the first time we were there) and the date. After a few (actually several) tries, we finally got the shoes in the tree.

It was interesting to see the tree again, now that we knew a little of its history and that it’s actually not the only one in the world. It certainly had a LOT more shoes in it that it did six years ago. After our nostalgic trip, we continued on to Old Middlegate Station, which is just a mile or two away.

"Just how much money is up there?"

Middlegate is the site of an old Pony Express stop, and it certainly looks it. We highly recommend stopping here if you’re ever traveling along Highway 50. The people are friendly and the place is just unique. There are dollar bills all over the ceiling that patrons have signed and stuck up there. There are all manners of interesting memorabilia (some might call junk) in and around the place. We were told that you can camp overnight in your RV for free, though we didn’t as this was a day trip for us. There is also food if you’re hungry, cooked fresh and hot.

We got to Middlegate right around lunchtime and were told by the cook / waitress / cashier that they had the best hamburgers around. We’ve heard that a million times before, only to be sorely disappointed with yet another frozen patty burnt to a crisp, but we decided to give it a try anyway and were pleasantly surprised. Our cheeseburgers were thicker than usual, juicy, and had a nice flavor. They were served on fresh kaiser rolls with fresh, piping hot fries on the side. We ended up taking about half of our burgers back with us, as they were big and very filling. The prices were a little high in our opinion ($7.95 each) but it was okay for a day-trip lunch.

Shadow making friends again.

The best part of our stop at Middlegate was the friendly reception that Shadow received. Not only was she welcome on the premises, but she was allowed right inside with us while we ate! Now, that was a first. We were all ready to eat outside under the shade trees at the picnic tables they had available, but while Chuck was inside ordering and Shadow and I were outside waiting, he was told to bring her on in. Turns out the cook is a dog lover with two of her own at home, so was more than happy to serve a cute little furry face. It’s interesting how we’ve noticed the further west and the more rural we go in this country, the less uptight people are about pets – dogs in particular. It’s SO nice!

More photos of the Shoe Tree and Middlegate, NV are in The Shoe Tree Gallery at Chippewa Marine Photography.

Poker Run

June 27th, 2009

Cheryl

Ready to start riding

Today Chuck, Shadow, and I went on a Bicycle Poker Run in Fallon, NV. Shadow and I rode 12 miles before stopping as the temperatures were just too hot for her. The weather here in Fallon has been in the high 90s for the past week, and will continue for the next. Chuck continued and did the whole 37 miles. Shadow and I worked as his backup SAG wagon (there were SAG stops along the route) and I did my film maker / photographer duties and documented his ride.

We did not win the poker hand for the $200 prize, but we had fun. There was a Bar-B-Que after the ride with lots of raffle prizes and a great bicycle-poker-run-theme cake. For more pictures, see our photography section.

RVGypsies Off-the-Grid and On MomLogic.com

June 26th, 2009

Cheryl

The Streett family aka The RVGypsies

We first met our friends the RVGypsies (Robert and Josslyn Streett, and their boys, Robbie and Sawyer) in Custer, SD when we first started full-timing in 2008. Josslyn recently contacted us to let us know that she was interviewed by a Warner Brothers Producer for an internet moms site.

Joss is being featured in one of a series of three interviews of moms who have lived on the road full time with their family. It’s called “Off the Grid Moms” and her interview is online today! Please go check out www.momlogic.com to read all about the full-timing adventures of this awesome family.

The interviewers told Joss that they wanted to inspire more moms to do “Off the Grid” things in their lives. It’s an inspirational and uplifting article, as is Joss, and all of the Streett family. Congrats on a great article, Joss! Hope to see you all again sometime soon.

Hail? Yes!

June 19th, 2009

Cheryl

“I think that’s hail!” Chuck said as he jumped out of bed around 11:30 tonight. I was still on the couch, enjoying watching television for the first time in about a month (“Fight Club” was the movie on my screen at the time) and just thought we were getting some really heavy rain with some really large drops. In fact I was getting a bit annoyed as it was so loud I couldn’t hear the TV and it was just getting to some interesting dialogue. As I got up, Chuck opened the door of the camper to a serious hail storm! The ground was a solid-white blanket of dime-sized chunks of ice. We both grabbed our cameras (Chuck his digital and me my videocam) and started trying to capture the downpour. Alas, we had a great time doing so, but not much came out on film.

Hail on ground taken from our camper doorway

I decided to grab some of the hail and save it in the freezer to try and photograph it in the morning. “Owww! ” you could hear me cry as those little chunks really hurt as they hit my head! “Do that again! I want to get a picture of the hail bouncing off your head,” Chuck laughed. Thanks, honey! He’s such a funny guy.

Fortunately, the camper and truck were not damaged in the storm. It was exciting though. We haven’t seen that fierce a hail storm, nor one lasting as long, since we were in North Dakota on our first Northwest RV journey back in 2003.

Arriving in Fallon, NV

June 16th, 2009

Cheryl

Currently we are in Fallon, NV – specifically Fallon Naval Air Station – and have plans to stay for about 2 weeks. Fallon is high desert (about 4,000’) and is warmer, dryer, and has less vegetation than we’ve had in the past month. It also doesn’t have much in the way of ‘tourist attractions’, though it is world-renowned for its Cantaloupes. That’s fine for us right now, as we need some time to just get some things done without being distracted by beautiful scenery and a plethora of things to do. Not that we’re complaining, not at all. It’s just that we have to remind ourselves sometimes that we’re not on vacation. This is our new lifestyle. Even though we’re on the road and living in an RV, we still have things that need to get done. So far we’re pleased with our location at Fallon NAS, which is home to the Naval Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). As such, we pretty much get an air show every day. For a pilot like Chuck, that’s a great thing. The base has everything we need – all the amenities you would expect (commissary, exchange, gym, pool, laundry, theater, etc…) and a full hook-up site that is reasonably priced. The city of Fallon is nearby, and is a nice little town. Looks like we’ll be happy here for a little while.

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