Yesterday we left Steamboat Bend Campground in Cincinnati after 4 nights. We got to see family and hang out with some friends. It’s never long enough, but at least we got to go home before Christmas, even if it was just for a couple days… Continue reading
I feel like I’ve been slacking on posting lately & I blame these two adorable puppies: Rebel & Charlie
Our “house” is a 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH (aka a big fifth wheel camper with a garage in the back-here’s a tour of it if you’re interested). Continue reading
I was woken up at 5:30 on this beautiful Saturday morning Friday morning to some pathetic whining sounds coming from our beloved puppy, Charles. Continue reading
We got lucky enough to have time to stop at Mount Rushmore on the way from San Francisco to North Dakota. 
It seems like so far, every time we see a national landmark it’s in inclement weather! When we saw the Grand Canyon it was snowing all blizzard-like, and it was chilly drizzly for Mount Rushmore. But it was still very neat. I’m pretty sure we were the first visitors that morning, we woke up early so we could have time to see it and then get on the road. I sprinkled some of my brother’s ashes there. 
It smelled SO good here to me after all those months in the city!
Today would’ve been his 32nd birthday.
I also spread some ashes at the Salt Flats in Utah.
And in wide open Wyoming. 
I think he would like that. Happy Birthday Adam. I miss you so much.
On more recent things, Charlie and I have been taking walks through Hillsboro. I’m so proud of her for being well-behaved in public! Usually we just take walks in the campground and she occasionally goes to the pet store to get her nails done, but we rarely walk through actual neighborhoods with sidewalks and what not. I felt like a mom taking her baby to a restaurant for the first time. I was so scared she was going to act like a wild banshee! But she acted like a lady and had some manners so I’m very proud!
Little Charlie all tuckered out
Here’s the shake n bake concoction I used:
Just shake. Then bake! This makes enough to coat more than 4 chicken breasts cut into smaller pieces. (I did 375 in my convection oven for about 35 minutes for two breasts and they came out juicy and delicious!)
Goodbye California! Well, we still have 7 days and a wake up! (As my brother would say…) We are getting Charlie out of the parking lot and heading for greener pastures! 
The tentative plan a few days ago included leaving here, driving to South Dakota to change our domicile, get a new mailing address, register vehicles, etc. then head on to Dallas for the next job.
But, plans changed as they usually do and the next job is in North Dakota now! So our little stop in South Dakota isn’t really out of the way at all!
I’m excited, I’ve never been to the Dakotas and I’ve never been that far north period. I’m hoping for Allen’s sake if nothing else that we don’t get snow while we are there, but it’ll be an adventure nonetheless.
We have Texas and California now. Allen says we should have New Mexico and Arizona but I say we only count the states that all three of us (Allen, Charlie and I) stay in THIS camper.. And since what I say goes (most of the time-sshhh!) they are not on the map yet!
I love traveling and I get a little hard to deal with (I think) when we sit somewhere for longer than a month or two. I just get antsy and want to get on with it already. And I can’t wait to add to our map!
The tower they are going to be working on was the tallest structure in the world when it was built in 1963. It’s now the 4th tallest structure in the world (after some buildings in Tokyo), THE tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the tallest radio mast in the world. Pretty cool…
The KVLY-TV mast is in Blanchard, ND (almost exactly halfway between Fargo and Grand Forks). Blanchard has a population of 26. Yep. Small town. And I thought Convent, Louisiana was tiny! (Population 711, right on the Mississippi River)
The closest RV park is in Hillsboro and that’s a little bigger, population 1,603 in the 2010 census. It’s 1 square mile. There is a family restaurant, a Burger King, a Subway, gas station, grocery store, bakery, and a florist and I think there MAY be 1-3 bars but I can’t really decide if they are still open. From what I gather online, the RV park is also the town laundry mat and a fried chicken place. It should be interesting!
I’m pretty sure I can walk everywhere in less than 15 minutes (if I don’t let Charlie stop and smell ALL of the roses!)
I know this isnt Charlie and these aren’t roses but I couldn’t resist the adorableness!
I’m super excited to be getting out of the city and out into the country. I get to where I need open spaces after being in a city for too long. I’m excited Charlie will have some grass! And Allen will be glad to get back to real tower work (not just painting and piddling).
Today is full of typical San Francisco fogginess so I’m making my hillbilly chili for dinner and trying out this new recipe for Chili Bread that I found… I’ll let you know if it comes out delicious!
I also made these pillow covers for our friend Brandi back in Kentucky and mailed them to her this week… Her boyfriend went and installed a 50AMP outlet for us so we can stay in their yard during the holidays. Talk about some awesome friends!
And I made these for us… I’m loving the teal and brown combo…
If you would like to see one of many tutorials on the web, this one by me, you can check out this link or this one!
For now I will leave you with some cuteness… Charlie and her parking lot pals… Cheers!
Cisco the friendly husky pup.
Cisco gets bored and tears things up… For instance, his bed.
Duke and Daisy being lazy
We are still patiently waiting for the replacement valve to show up. We spoke with Lippert last Monday and they said they would send it out via UPS but it hasn’t gotten here yet. In the meantime, our jacks have been “popping” more than ever and now they are actually moving. They woke us up a couple of times last night even! It’s a loud popping noise accompanied by the camper moving, slipping down the jacks. It’s mostly in the front two jacks but the middle two are also acting up.
It makes me a little worried that our camper is going to nose-dive and that would be no good whatsoever!
I’ve been Googling the problem and I think when we do finally take it in for the yearly inspection we should do so a few months early. I want to make sure everything is still under the one year manufacturer warranty from Grand Design. We need to have them fix the issue with the jacks but also I think they should fix the floor by our kitchen island. It is super creaky, it creaks when Charlie walks on it, and she only weighs 8lbs!
Since I don’t have any photos of broken, creaky leveling jacks, here’s a few of Charlie. We got her a Lamb Chop toy this weekend and she’s already emptied the stuffing and won’t leave the room without it!
Oh, and the Cincinnati Bengals won yesterday!
Oh, and I’m currently losing my battle with the stray cats in the campground. They insist on using the dirt right outside our front door as a litter box. I’ve tried cayenne pepper and ammonia so far to no avail. Any suggestions on how to keep them away?? And how to keep flies away??
I love dressing up for Halloween, I love putting clothes on Charlie, and I love making things. All that adds up to…..
A Puppy Hot Dog Halloween Costume!!!
Last year all three of us dressed up like “Redneck and Proud”/hillbillies/white trash/Earl and Joy from My Name is Earl type characters…
I’ve been planning Charlie’s costume for a few months now. I still don’t know what Allen and I are going to be… But at least Charlie’s all set!
I took my inspiration from these pictures…
I think I want to add a piece of yellow yarn to Charlie’s costume… But we’ll see.
I started off by buying some yellowish/bun colored fabric and some hot dog/smoked sausage colored fabric. I already had the white jersey fabric. It has some kind of a floral pattern to it, but you can’t really tell when only a little shows. And I got a bag of stuffing for the buns. I also used scissors, needle and thread, Velcro and a sewing machine.
After I had all my supplies, I started planning how I would do it. I started by cutting 2 ovals from a paper bag, one a little larger than the other, so the buns would poof out like buns do. I measured Charlie of course first and decided how long and tall they needed to be. For the larger oval I cut 2 pieces of the yellow and the smaller I cut 2 yellow and 2 white, for the inside of the bun. I also cut a piece for the hot dog. I made that one almost as long as the buns then made it so it would wrap around her middle and stay there. You can see the shape in the pictures better than I can explain.
I hemmed the red piece then double checked my measurements on my model. She hates that part. Then when I knew I had it right, I added sticky Velcro to each end. I wound up pleating the back end of the hot dog piece when I was all finished so it would fit better. Charlie has a large chest and a tiny waist. (I wish I was built like that!)
I sewed the smaller white and yellow pieces together first, then I pinned the bun pieces together like a sandwich. Yellow on each side with white in the middle. Or, right sides together, but with this fabric it didn’t matter. I started by lining up the sides and top and bottom in the middle. Then going from there, trying to evenly space the pleats.
Then I sewed around the edge, removing pins as I went. Now, I probably should’ve left an opening a few inches long at the bottom so I could turn it right side out then stuff it. But, I didn’t. Total accident. But it worked out nonetheless. I had to cut a hole in the bun, I cut it on the inside, on the smaller oval so that it would be covered up by the hot dog.
The. I stuffed it. Not too full, I didn’t want it to be too heavy for my little pumpkin and hurt her back. Haha but enough so it was reasonably poofy.
I then crudely stitched that hole closed by hand then even more crudely sewed the bun to the red part. (After much measuring and trying it on Charlie and disturbing her precious nap time).
After I had that all finished, I tried it on her. That’s when I decided to pleat the back of the hot dog piece.
By this time she was super sick of me, but I managed to get one more measurement from the front of the hot dog, around her neck so that when she stood on her hind legs (we call this “sitting pretty” and she does it for treats only, never for free!) it wouldn’t fall down around her ankles and trip her. I cut a piece of the white fabric to that length, sewed a tube then attached it to either side of the hot dog.
FINISHED!
Charlie is a weiner! I mean a hot dog! She’s actually part weiner dog.
That reminded me of Pedro’s. It’s a campground/amusement park/rest stop on I-95 right on the border of North and Siuth Carolina. We stayed there once (after much pleading on my part why I NEEDED to see the wonder that is Pedro’s, simply because it is advertised on billboards on the side of the highway for hundreds of miles!). I love the billboards.
Yesterday my mom laid the plaque for my brother’s tree. I wish I could’ve been there.
We ordered it from International Bronze when I first got out here to San Francisco. It took almost 2 months. Joe, the designer I spoke with, was really nice and helpful and I recommend them to anyone looking for a plaque.
It’s in Mt. Healthy Park in my hometown. Adam always loved the park and especially the pool. We spent many, many days there when we were younger. They used to have a putt-putt golf course that cost 15 cents, or you could pick up 5 pieces of trash and play for free -that was what we always did! Adam passed his test to swim in the deep end with ease, me, not so much. But one day when the pool was crowded he pretended like he hadn’t taken his test yet, there were a bunch of kids that were going to take theirs at once. (You just had to swim back and forth across the 10-foot part.) But when we all started swimming, Adam helped me and it was too crowded that the lifeguards didn’t see. So from then on I was allowed to jump off the diving board. And that’s all I did was jump, towards the side, holding my nose. No diving for me! Then I would doggy paddle to the ladder and get back out. Thank you Adam. I love you.
So yesterday was pretty sad.
To top it off, it was National Dog Day. (I’ll explain why this was sad…) I made Charlie a new doggy bed. I was Pinteresting, yet again, and found an idea for an envelope dog bed, or a snuggly dog bed, or like a sleeping bag dog bed. I knew I had to make it for her because she is constantly wanting under the covers.
I woke up 5 minutes before Allen’s alarm went off this morning to Charlie whining in my face. I lifted up the blanket so she could crawl under. Still, whining. I laid my hand on her. No more whining. What a baby! 🙂
So I made this bed and I’m pretty sure it instantly became her favorite. (She has 3 – One that came with her from her old family, one I made last week and now this one… Allen says Charlie’s camper footprint is getting too large.)
So when we went to bed, I put it in the closet in the bedroom, for some reason she likes it in there, and both sides of the bed now have other dog beds. So she went in the closet and that’s where she slept, all by herself, almost all night. Without me. I had to sleep alone. Well, not alone, I mean Allen was there, but he’s not the same as my puppy. (Sorry honey, I love you!) So after Allen fell asleep, which he always tends to do a lot faster than me, I was awake and sad because Charlie wasn’t next to me and thinking about my brother, and I think I was awake half the night. Not being able to fall asleep is the worst.
But, today is a new day, and I get to try out my new Bug-A-Salt rifle! Unfortunately it is not a semi-automatic… I have to pump it and turn the safety off every time. But hopefully I get rid of all these flies that hang around in my front dirt yard! Good ole San Francisco…
By the way, I made Beef Stew for dinner last night if you want the recipe… Yum!
And here are the instructions for the doggy bed on SuzySitcom. One thing I did realize, then I had to redo it, is the instructions say to put the pocket piece and the larger piece right side together. But this is wrong, you need to put the pocket piece and the larger piece both right side facing down… You’ll see!
While Allen enjoys his view “from the office“…
Panoramic view from atop Sutro Tower
Allen on top of Sutro
a zoomed in view
Charlie getting in the way of my reading
This was a better spot but it didnt last long
Just keeping an eye on things
Home Sweet Home on Wheels 