On the road, and [finally] on the blog

To friends and family of the StringerZoo, I must apologize for neglecting my blogging duties since we left home. I can't believe it's been over three weeks since we moved out! I also can't believe it's been since FEBRUARY that Janell or I have blogged. Life has been a bit overwhelming, I guess. Here's the reader's digest version of the past couple weeks, with a few pictures to help...

Friday, April 19, was our last night on Forest Meadow Court. On Saturday, we moved into our trailer at the KOA in Chula Vista, and finishished preparing the house for the movers to start packing us up on Monday.

By 4pm on Wed, the boxes were gone and the truck rolled out of town. We stuck around for a few more days of cleaning, and saying goodbye to friends around town. My last day at work was Wednesday as well. I don't start my new job until May 27, so I'm enjoying the time off.

On Thursday, we joined our homeschool group at Imperial Beach for a lunch time farewell party. Upon arrival, the winds were blowing about 20 mph and were freezing everyone out in the park next to the beach. After gulping down our Taco Bell, we found that the sand was much warmer and before long I had constructed my first sand castle in many years (and likely my last for several more years... at least with Pacific sand).
On Saturday the 26th, we officially hit the road, heading north. Our first stop was to visit Janell's grandfather, Roy, in Buena Park (about 1 1/2 hours north of San Diego). We enjoyed lunch and some quality time catching up with Great Grandpa.

Our next couple stops, we neglected to get any pictures. We visited with Janell's parents and her sister. The girls spent the night with Auntie "Mo" and we all went to church with the Macks the next morning. Sunday evening we spent with my sister and her son and twins in Atascadero, CA. I think Amanda took some pic's, but I haven't bugged her to send them to me yet.
We made a quick stop south of Stockton, CA, at the San Joaquin Valley Sharpe Defense Distribution Depot (cheap stop), which is also next door to (and down wind from) the Diamond Pet Food plant. I STRONGLY recommend never living (or stopping) anywhere near a dog food plant. Especially a maker of cheap dog food. Some smells you can get used to. Not that one.

Next was Mt. Shasta, CA, to visit our dear friend, Lynn. We also met up with my parents there and visited the Turtle Bay Discovery Center in Redding on Wed, April 30. We had a great time there and got some fun pictures of the girls learning about the geography, ecology, and history of the north western Sierras. Don't ask what this picture has to do with any of those things. I just thought is was a great picture of the girls...

Along the way, we finally worked into a routine in the trailer. Everyone has their jobs to do and this is a pretty busy place to live with all six (rather, eight) of us stumbling over one another (especially when it's raining or snowing outside. More on that later). Our typical wake up time is about 8am and we'll have showers and breakfast done by around 10. We're usually lucky to be on the road by 11:30 on our normal, relaxed routine. It's certainly possible to be rolling earlier, but we're not stressing about it. With all the visiting we did during the first week on the road, we typically didn't get the kids into bed until around 10pm, which added to the need to sleep in a little.

Our next stop was outside Portland, OR, with more good friends, "Uncle" Jim and "Aunt" Carole, whom Janell and I hadn't seen since our wedding! They graciously let us park our trailer in their larget driveway (even after we crushed some late blooming flowers in the parking process). To her credit, Janell was just following my directions as she maneuvered (that is, backed in) the trailer into place. Everyone (including me) was very impressed with her rig handling skills. My parents also visited with Jim and Carole while we were there. During our visit, we found that one of our trailer tire sidewals had been cut. Upon closer inspection, the inboard tread had worn completely to the wire cords, and was clearly unsafe to drive on. Unless the sidewall had been cut, I probably wouldn't have looked at the tire that closely for a long way down the road. The timing of the cut and the timing of the discovery could not have been coincidence. God continues to take care of us on this trip. Uncle Jim is a brilliant aircraft mechanic who also builds WWII jeeps and restores war birds in his spare time, so he had quick access to a jack and within a few minutes, we had the tire changed out for the spare and were ready to do. Thanks to Papa and Uncle Jim for finding the problem and helping to fix it so fast!

Our next stop was in Port Angeles, WA. Yes, we took the scenic route from San Diego to Maryland. My paternal grandmother lives in Port Angles with my Uncle. We hadn't seen them in many years and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit before we moved back to the the east coast. Once again, we met with my parents in Port Angles. (Hmmm.) We had a great visit and the girls and dogs provided plenty of entertainment for Great Grandma Peggy (as they do for everyone they meet). We enjoyed a better-than-theater-quality movie in Unlce Skip's home-built theater in the garage. We also snagged a few geocaches while we were in Port Angeles. Click on this link to learn more about geocaching if you've never heard of it. I'm trying to find at least one cache in each state we visit during our drive. So far, so good. This picture is from a cache we found together on Saturday morning, May 3.

Here are the girls with their great grandmother...

Leaving Port Angles, we finally turned eastbound (any further north and we'd have been in Canada, eh!) We made a quick stop on NE 26th Street in Redmond, WA, to visit the house where I lived from 1976 to 1979. I hadn't been there in over 28 years and it was fun to show the girls a little of my past, including the little store on Lake Samamish where my dad and I used to stop for Orange Creamsicles ("50/50 Bars") during his bike rides around the lake. I was a tottler strapped into a child seat on the back of his bike. I don't remember much of the rides, as I slept most of the way. But I definitely remember the 50/50 bars. In fact, during my grocery run that evening, I picked up a pack of the local variety of 50/50 bars and brought them back to the trailer (just shy of Spokane, WA, on May 4). From Spokane, we made it to Butte, MT, for a night, then on to West Yellowstone, MT, for 5 nights and 4 full days in the park. There's much more that I'd like to say about the park than I have time for now. Here's a sampling of the hundreds of pictures we took, with a few comments to go with them...

Rush hour in Yellowstone...

This is "Plume Geyeser", about 100 yds north west of Old Faithful. We were waiting for our second viewing of Old Faithful, on the opposite side of the geyser dome than we had seen it earlier, when we were surprised by an erruption behind our backs, from "Plume". We turned around to look at it, and the erruption subsided. Bummed, we turned back to Old Faithful, and Plume started up again! This contined for several iterations. I finally got a couple pictures of Plume, only about 10 yards away!

Here are the girls, bundled up against the light falling snow and very cold winds, while we watched Old Faithful prepare to erupt in the background.

Here's the whole Zoo, with one of the many beautiful waterfalls in Yellowstone in the background. I've since Photoshop'ed the camper out of the background (and removed Katelynn's snow flake booger).

We saw lots of wildlife each day in the park, including many bison calves.

Katelynn took this picture of an elk while we were driving by. No editing required. She's turning into a fine photographer. Beth, on the other hand, needs some work. :)

I'm not sure when I took this, but Hailey was flashing super cute looks just before bed a few days ago. I had to share...

The Stringer girls at the Yellowstone River falls in the "Grand Canyon" of the Yellowstone, during our last full day at the park. Katelynn, Emily, and Beth all earned their Junior Ranger Patches, after four days of collecting information about the park and learning about it's wildlife and geology. We all had a great time and want to come back to see more. I'd especially love to explore the back country. Maybe I have a future as a park ranger?...

We left Yellowstone this moring, after enjoying a Mother's Day brunch at a church down the street from our campsite. The owners of the campsite invited us (our daughters had befriended their kids) and we really enjoyed getting to know them a little this morning over pancakes and coffee. Unfortunately, we had a long drive ahead of us and couldn't stay for the church service, which started at 11. As it was, we didn't arrive in Buffalo, WY, tonight until about 9pm, after a beautiful, but stressful drive through a 9000 ft snow-covered mountain pass in central Wyoming. The journey continues tomorrow as we head toward Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. Two nights there, then we're "sprinting" to Maryland with no further sightseeing stops. Should be hitting Solomons Rec Center (RV spot already reserved) on May 18th.