Saturday, March 29, 2014

I think I have posted a picture of our truck and trailer at the top of the blog.  I haven't attempted to do much in the way of dressing up the blog, so I'm starting to investigate what I can do.

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We all managed to survive Olga's departure, but it isn't easy.  Natasha and Olga are very close and Olga has taken care of Maria since shortly after she was born.  Maria has also had to adjust to daycare, but she seems to be doing okay there.  She's certainly tired when she gets home.

Olga's dog, Sonia, did not go back to Russia with her and is missing her.  I could hardly get her outside at all Thursday.  If she goes out now, she looks for Olga first.  She's spending most of her time curled up in Obi's little chair.

I took all three of the dogs for a walk yesterday, which was a bit much.  So this morning, when Sonia actually showed an inclination to go with Obi, Salami and me, Steve came along to help out.  Obi seems to be slowing down.  It's a sad day when I can walk faster than the dog!  But he is 10 now, so it's to be expected.

But the neighborhood is looking like spring.  Several houses have annuals out.  And at least half the trees in this neighborhood are live oaks, which look like deciduous trees but don't lose their leaves.  At least not all at once.  I think they actually lose them all year long, so you have to keep raking.  But it gives the illusion that spring is really here to see trees in full leaf.

Olga and Natasha planted some miniature roses around the pool before she left.

Olga also planted some hanging planters and started tomato plants that are growing in the kitchen window.

Olga made it back to Kolomna just fine.  She has skyped several times today, but has missed Natasha.  Natasha and Mike are out looking at cars to replace Mike's car.  This time Olga said she was going to bed, hopefully to sleep.  

Steve thinks he needs my help mounting a TV on the wall, so I'll call it quits for now.

Deb

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

I think spring has arrived in Dallas.  It's 9 pm and 61 degrees.  The next two days are supposed to be in the 80's.  Maybe it's time to head north.  The trees are starting to have green buds and some of the neighbors have planted frost resistant annuals like pansies.  

It's been a busy time here.  Mike's brother, John and his wife, Enza, flew in on Saturday for Maria's baptism on Sunday.  The baptism took place Sunday afternoon.

It was a lovely day.  The weather was perfect.  We had dinner before hand at a lovely Mexican restaurant near Natasha's and then drove over to the church.  Maria was fairly well behaved, enjoying a bit of play time with the lady sitting behind her.

Monday morning Maria went off to day care for the first time.  It was a bit traumatic for all involved. Mike picked her up around noon.  Enza said she fell asleep while eating a cookie!  I think she was tired.  But Olga was glad to have her home for the afternoon.

Steve and I had taken off in the morning on Monday to visit Ikea.  Ikea is a Scandinavian home furnishing store unlike anything else.  It's one of the few stores outside of home improvement stores that Steve enjoys shopping in.  We had several things we wanted for the trailer and were hoping to get them at Ikea.

The rear of the trailer had two recliners in front of the big picture window.

Our vision of living in the trailer was a desk across the back.  We left one of the recliners in West Lafayette and substituted an Ikea chair we already had.  Neither of us ever sat in the recliner, so we convinced Natasha to take it for the game room upstairs.  I found two folding tables that would fit across the back to use as a desk as we figured out how we wanted to live in the trailer.  We then moved the dining table to the middle of the desk area so we have a T shaped work area.  That has worked well for us, so we were looking for materials to make the setup permanent.

4 or 5 hours later, we had two counter tops that will be used for the work area, table legs, two desk chairs (the ones we are using have permanent homes in West Lafayette) and a multitude of other pieces and parts.  We will be getting rid of the table and chairs that came with the trailer.  (Anyone need a nice oak table and 4 chairs?)  Natasha has already spoken for the extra recliner, which we will deliver the next time we head from West Lafayette to Dallas.

We're working on the list of things Natasha would like to have done.  The furnace company came in Tuesday and will be putting in a new furnace tomorrow.  Steve got the last of the baby gates that we bought in December installed.  

Tomorrow will be a tough day.  Olga leaves for Russia and won't be back for a year.  She's been an integral part of this family for the last year and it will be a big adjustment for all.  I guess I should be planning what to cook for dinner tomorrow.  Olga usually does the cooking, but that is something I can take on for the rest of our time here.

Our current plans are to leave on Monday, March 31.  I have a dental appointment on April 8, so we plan to be back in West Lafayette by then.  But we are going to take our time and see a few things on the way home.  We're trying to figure out what those are now.

That's all for now.

Deb

Thursday, March 20, 2014

The cold weather gave way to a summer day.  Tuesday, the high was 82.  It was a nice birthday present!

That will certainly be the high this week, although we may have another day or two in the 70's.

Steve and I looked at a couple of county campgrounds nearby for future reference.  Both were on the same lake, Lewisville Lake.  One was nice and shady and a number of spots had lake views, but the roads were terrible.  As Steve said, the speed bumps were superfluous.  Many of the spots would be too short, but they seemed to have enough long ones.  The second campground had 4 spots total, I think.  And maybe 3 trees.

No clear winner here, but either would do in a pinch.

The Mavericks had a game last night (which they lost by one point).  It still makes me smile to watch Olga and Natasha yelling at the team as they watch.  My two Russians are pretty Americanized.

Maria keeps growing and accomplishing new things.  Here she is eating a banana with very little help.

How do you tire out 3 grandparents?  Have them walk Maria.

Which these days means walk back and forth with her while she walks.  She seems to love to walk, but isn't quite steady enough yet to do it when she's not hanging on to something.

I finally got some sewing done and finished a project today.  It's just a sleeveless top, but it felt good to get something done.  I've started on another project I brought along.  We'll see how far I get.

That's all our news for now.

Deb

Monday, March 17, 2014

My last post said it was a pleasant experience to walk Obi.  That changed as cold weather moved in.  I know it's not as cold as almost everywhere else, but walking in the low 40's requires more than two layers of sweatshirts.

One purchase I made for our New Zealand trip a few years ago was a 3 season jacket.  It has a outer layer that functions as a jacket and a zip out liner that can be worn alone keeping you warm down to freezing.  For below freezing, you wear both layers.  It has gotten a lot of use on this trip, in all variations.  But the forecast for Dallas was fairly warm, so it's in the trailer.  I brought a hoodie and a fleece jacket.  So for the past two days, I've borrowed coats to walk Obi.

But at least we didn't get snow.  Apparently, DC got 6 inches and it barely made the national news.  What a winter!  It's warmer today and the high here tomorrow is currently predicted to be 79 - at least on my iPhone.

Mike has a marathon of games at home the next two weeks.   Having home games means we'll see a bit more of him, although not a lot, as they prepare for the games.  The NBA has a grueling schedule.  We're watching them play the Celtics right now.  I think they played Oklahoma last night.  I'm at the kitchen table and Olga and Natasha are on the couch cheering on the Mavericks.  Olga knows all of the names of the players and follows all the games, as does Natasha.  Occasionally we get a glimpse of Mike on the sidelines, but he's not always on the court.  Most of his work is done before the game and during training sessions.

Mike's university, Suffolk University, did a nice article on him in their alumni magazine.  For those of you Steve didn't send the link to, here it is:

http://www.suffolk.edu/magazine/152.php#.Uyes9Hm4mlI

This is the first time I've added a link, so I hope it works.

Tomorrow Steve comes back from Indiana, so I get to drive the big truck in Dallas traffic to pick him up at the airport.  The Dallas traffic bothers me more than the big truck.  I'm really fairly comfortable driving the truck.  We had originally thought we'd go with a smaller truck, but the one ton diesel does pull the trailer nicely.  We're glad we took the advice of all our farmer friends to go with the big truck.

Although we have seen bigger.  We spotted this one as we pulled into Disney's Fort Wilderness.  It actually had "Private Vehicle" printed on the side.

I'm sure it does a nice job of pulling the trailer!

Deb

Friday, March 14, 2014

We made it to Dallas yesterday and got moved into Natasha's.  We'll be here for two weeks or so and since she doesn't have a drive way long enough for us to park in, we've stored the trailer.

That means we had to empty the refrigerator.  Not fun.  But it's done and now Natasha's refrigerator is crowded.  But at least it's warm enough here that we didn't have to winterize the trailer.

Today was laundry day.  Tomorrow Steve flies back to Indiana for a meeting.  I'll hang out with Maria (and Olga, Natasha and Mike) for the next few days and see what I can accomplish on the Debbie do list.  Steve will be back on Tuesday.

The weather is mild enough that walking Obi is a pleasant experience, at least when I can stop him from sniffing every mailbox.  Mostly he's being good and trying to get along with Natasha's dogs.

Maria will be walking any day now.  She walks a lot pushing a doll stroller.  Some day soon she'll just let go and be on her way.

One of the things we need to work on is our route home.  We liked Beaver Dam so much we could head back there for a few days or go through Memphis and/or Paducah, KY.  Paducah is the home of the American Quilter's Society and their quilt museum.  

Our friend Diana emailed that the iris are coming up next to the garage at home, but that there is snow next to them.  Hopefully in two weeks that will be gone.

I do remember one Easter in Pittsburgh growing up when we got 18 inches of snow the night before Easter.  But I'm pretty sure Easter was in March that year.  Hopefully by April the threat of snow will be gone.

Wherever you are, keep warm and safe!

Deb

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

We had a quiet day here at Beaver Dam.  We decided to stay here for another day while a front with high winds blew through from Dallas.  Pulling the trailer isn't bad with the truck, but high winds would complicate things considerably.  

We took a walk with Obi, who for once seem to want to take a walk.  He typically doesn't like to let the trailer out of sight.

I find looking at water very soothing, so I did a lot of that.  The water was very blue, reflecting the cloudless sky.  Then I would see patches of gray, ruffled water.  Since there were no clouds, this must have been the wind.  You could watch the patch of rough, gray water move across the lake.

Tonight we're packing up for a 2 week stay with Natasha.  We'll store the trailer and stay with her.  So we have to pack up clothes and the refrigerator.  Steve will be heading back to Lafayette this weekend for a board meeting on Monday.  Lafayette also got the front we experienced, except they got it with 2 inches of snow.

Steve received a text from the sheriff's office that north and south traffic lights were hard to see as they were covered with snow.  And that a lot of lights had lost power.  My condolences to those in the Midwest.

The sun just set over the lake.  No clouds, so not a spectacular sunset, just a calming one.

I'll blog from Dallas.

Deb

Monday, March 10, 2014

What a glorious day!  We woke up to overcast skies and a glassy lake.  Everything was very peaceful.

Steve called the park we hoped to stay at Monday night, and she politely laughed at us.  Turns out it’s spring break.  At 8 am she only had two empty sites and they don’t take reservations, so chances are good they won’t have room for us.  Time to punt.

We were soon on our way on the Natchez Trace.  The clouds dissipated slowly over the morning as we headed south.   Steve asked what Tupelo meant.  I said “Elvis’s birthplace”  as mentions of Elvis are everywhere.  But actually it’s a type of tree.  There’s a National Battlefield at Tupelo commemorating the 1864 battle there.  We didn’t stop there, but did stop at the first place we could walk the old Trace.  The modern parkway parallels the old Trace, not all of which still exists.  It didn’t come under national protection until the 1930s.  By then parts of it had disappeared under roads, farms and towns.  But walking on part of the old Trace is walking on a millennia of history. 

This is a picture of the part of the old Trace that we walked.

As we proceeded south, the skies cleared and we had a bright, sunny day.

There are Indian burial grounds along the Trace dating back 2000 years. We passed the site of Hernando de Soto’s winter camp in 1540.  He was a Spanish explorer.  Sites of Indian villages dot the trace.  Civil War battles were fought near the Trace.  Andrew Jackson, John Audubon, Daniel Boone, Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant all walked the Trace.   Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark) died on the Trace and there is a monument to him on the northern section.

I can’t imagine spending a month walking north on the Trace to return home to the Midwest, especially through some swamps.  But thousands of people did.  It was a major thoroughfare until steamboats made it easier to go back up river by boat rather than walking or riding in the early 1800’s.  Although designated a post road (mail route), as cities such as Jackson, Mississippi, were established on nearby rivers and not on the Trace, the road fell out of use.

But the parkway preserves what is left of the old Trace and encompasses a modern trail for most of it’s length.  The roadway itself is restricted to noncommercial traffic and has a 50 mile an hour speed limit, which cuts down on traffic.  It winds through forests, prairies and farmland.  It’s a relaxing drive.  We saw several deer and as we rode south, we saw more and more signs of spring.

At the park ranger’s suggestion, we stopped at Jeff Busby lookout.  It’s one of Mississippi’s highest points (603 feet) and has lovely views.  It also contains a campground, where we stopped and had lunch.  

We had the place to ourselves, so I checked on the other campgrounds on the Trace.  They don’t accept reservations and don’t have hookups, but are nice campgrounds.  We decided to try Rocky Springs campground, not far from I20, where we were planning on leaving the Trace anyway and heading west for Dallas.

Before we reached Rocky Springs, we stopped and did a hike through a swamp.  Obi, who didn't want to go near the lake yesterday, only shied away from the water once.  It was dark water and I'm not sure he knew what it was.

We reached Rocky Springs Campground in the late afternoon.  While not empty, we had our pick of campsites and settled in (in a pull through site) for the night.  This is the view from our rear window (after I cleaned it.)

Somehow I didn't imagine doing housework while traveling.  But it does have to be done.  Luckily, both of us try to keep it clean, so that helps.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

No Internet access last night, we were in a dead zone.  So last night's post is combined with tonight's.  Amazingly we don't hit too many dead zones, although we went through on as we were headed towards tonight's campground.

We are in a National Forest Service campground, Beaver Dam, in Louisiana.  Easy pull in site with water, electricity and a lake view.  All for $9.50, senior rate.  Here's the view from our rear window.

Mark Davis sent us email saying the weather was better and we could come home.  But I wouldn't have working conditions like this:

Being able to rest my eyes on a lake view makes keeping up the blog easy!

I need to go and check out places near Plano.  The place we stayed last time is full and we're still looking.  We may stay here another day while we look.

Take care!

Deb