Quincy, CA

Grandson, Stevie Waalkes and his girl friend Katie had a son Kale Makai Waalkes today - Our Great Grandchild.

Quincy, CA

When everyone else has stopped throwing the ball for Karma she heads for 9 month old Tara. Karma drops the ball in front of Tara. Tara picks it up and proceeds to put it in her mouth dog slobber and all. Remember she is only 9 months old and this is normal behavior for her. Then Tara very slowly releases the hold each of her fingers has on the ball and it drops in front of her or off her chairs, the slide or what ever. Karma pounces on it chews it a bit and then brings it back to Tara to start the process all over again.

Ruthi in Anchorage, AK

Ruthi leaves Anchorage tonight for Reno. There is “termination stuff” on the mountain tops and some frost on the windows in the mornings. Work is going well; Ruthi and Kassie are able to eat out at all their favorite places.

Quincy, CA

Ruthi is going to Alaska for a week to complete her work that has been continued until 30 June 2010 unless she finishes her deliverables before that.

Quincy, CA

It is great to be back and see the kids and grandkids. We are in the same park but closer to the front. We have bike paths right out our door and a baseball field not far for Karma to fetch her ball. Bodhi is now a mature 4 (almost 5 October 20th) who has 3 mornings a week kindergarten – quite the little “man”. He comes home so proud of the things he learned that day.

Reno, NV

Spaces at Border Town RV Resort included a permanent concrete picnic table positioned so that our back door opened up on the seats. We worked real hard to position the 5th wheel in such a way as to be able to access the utility facilities, miss the picnic table and large tree on the other side. We ended up a bit into the road way and off the concrete pad.

We did some Reno business – Costco/Target for dog food, medicines, etc. and slept and slept. The total drive to this point was 1900 miles in 8 days. We are definitely not cut out to be long haul drivers. To think that in our youth, Ruthi and her roomies would drive the 800 miles from New York to Chicago (along the Eastern side of Interstate 80, no less) for a week-end. And boots has no memory of her miss spent youth. Just as well!!

Border Town, NV

This was the most desolate area of the entire trip – from Winnemucca, NV to here. There were fewer truck stops even (2 to be exact) with even fewer people stopped at them. For 200 miles, there were large expanses of high dessert that stretched for miles back of us, in front, to our left and right – really barren!

We are exhausted and are staying here to replenish our supplies in Reno (15 miles away) before we go to the kids in Quincy (80 miles). We wanted to have energy when we see the grandkids especially.

Winnemucca, NV

400 miles – our longest drive yet. There was a mountain advisory (means there are steep declines and it’s Boots’ turn to drive) out of Coalville to Salt Lake City (50 miles). Luckily this was a holiday (Labor Day), so Boots driving in the city was not as traumatic an event as it might have been. Had there been an easy exit we could have traded drivers after the mountains. But no such luck. The drive through Salt Lake City was very complex and full of cloverleaf intersections with lots of other highways. At one point we were sure we had missed our exit and were headed “who only knew”. Then as if by magic we were on the right road at it was just poor signage that confused us.

Coalville, UT

The terrain is getting flatter and drier still. We did 350 miles of high desert. We are tiring after 4 long days of driving on the straightest and most boring road in America (Interstate 80). There are a lot of trucks going the other way but much less traffic on our side of the road.

Laramie, WY

It took 300 miles to the Wild West (flat terrain all around) yet we kept climbing and climbing. The highest point on Interstate 80 is over 8,600+ feet. We could feel it in just walking Karma or getting gas at truck stop. Both of us found the altitude quite uncomfortable. Winter much be really cold and windy here.

Saw another stimulus sign on the road work. Most states have traffic slow from whatever the regular speed limit is (65, 70) to 45 for road construction areas. Not Wyoming, their 75 mph speed limit never fluctuates road work or not.

On our way here, we were so close we slipped off Interstate 80 and drove into Colorado. It took a total of 8 miles to be able to check off another state. We will re-do Colorado for the beauty and our oldest grandson, Erik in Grand Junction. The short drive did reveal another stimulus project on the roads.

Gothenburg, NE

290 miles of Nebraska continued the Iowa rolling hills for a ways then began to flatten out more and more. If we were geologist, ornithologist, or even botanist, this trip would have been slower and more educational. We just take the views, birds, and plants at face value. Sometimes it surprises us to see so much glacial effect on our country. There also seem to be similar rock formations across the land: North and South, East and West.

On another expert point – bug expert 'entomologist'. Ruthi has throughout this trip been attracting all sorts of biting bugs – flies (big and little), mosquitoes (again small and large), gnats, no see ‘ems, spiders, ants (red, black, small, large, etc.), etc. etc. etc. At one point her calves were so bitten that it looked like a case of poison ivy/oak. Nothing would relieve the incessant itching. We tried histamine, camphor, calamine, cold water, etc. Finally, Ruthi’s sister’s cable guy came up with a cheap easy solution that seemed to finally solve the problem – spray vinegar on the bites. This provided relief for 3-4 hours and Ruthi was able to stick her legs in the shower or do the application outside by spritzing her calves soaking wet. Then she waited a bit for it to dry and she could get back to a sound sleep for a few more hours. Vinegar simple, cheap, and organic!

Avoca, IA

We hitched up last night and then left early for long day of driving. We had about 380 miles to drive across some of Illinois and almost all of Iowa on Interstate 80. This is the longest daily drive we have done since our start last June. We are used to 200-mile days: drive an hour and a half and do a pit stop; repeat until we arrive at our RV Camp ground at 3-ish in the afternoon.

Iowa was much more rolling hills than either of us had expected. We thought it would look just like Illinois – flat corn and wheat fields. There was corn and wheat just planted on rolling hills. We were exhausted when we finally arrived at the Pottawattamie County Fairgrounds’ pull-through spaces.

Seneca, IL

There were open visitor spaces at Bill/Blanche’s Wood Smoke Ranch. So we moved there for the rest of our days visiting Marseilles. We are getting pretty good at the backing up part of this life-style. People ask which of us is better at the driving / parking tasks. We still break it out the same way – cities for Ruthi and mountains for Boots. Backing up is still even between us. But we can’t do it alone as we need those extra pair of eyes to check the sides and back. This was a much better park both in landscaping and competence.