2016 year-end summary

 

The last day of 2016. Man, time goes by. In April it'll be 5 years that we've been full time.

After spending the winter boondocking in the Arizona desert, we moved north to Utah to see some of the national parks. This year we went to Zion, Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks. They were great!  It’s amazing to see what Mother Nature can create. We boondocked in the areas and actually had snow for a day too.

We spent May through August in North Dakota. Sheila got to spend time with her dad (who turned 92 in September). We worked (volunteered) at Little Missouri Bay State Park near Killdeer for a month. It's on the edge of the North Dakota Badlands. That was interesting as there are horse corrals, and we cleaned up as needed and sold hay bales and firewood.  Next was Lewis & Clark State Park near Williston. That is a busy campground with families and weekend events going on.

September was children and grandchildren time!  Dean and Valerie flew to Korene and Jason’s for Labor Day weekend and we had lots of fun. We stayed for most of the month until moving on to the Grand Forks area for a new job – Curt drove semi truck for a farmer, hauling sugar beets from the field to the piler for sugar beet harvest.  They were 12-hour shifts, when the weather cooperated.  It can’t be too warm or too cold. I think he enjoyed being in a truck again on a farm.  We were able to stay on the farm, so no daily traveling. We were there for about two weeks.

After that we took our coach to a shop in Fargo to get the radiator checked. Curt had noticed it had been leaking. Well, it ended up being in the shop for three weeks, while a radiator and charge air cooler had to be built and shipped!  Luckily Curt’s sister and brother-in-law live there and put up with us for that time.  While there I got an abscessed tooth and ended up with a root canal and crown, then got sick from the antibiotic.  Lots of fun.

After the coach was fixed, about this time the weather forecast was starting to talk about snow and cold, which we definitely didn’t want to get stuck in!  We took off south and luckily missed it by a couple of days.  From the flatter area of the country down to the hills and trees of Branson, Missouri.

We have ended up at River View RV Park in Vidalia, Louisiana for a couple of months, again volunteering for our site. It is right on the banks of the Mississippi River, the border between Louisiana and Mississippi. Across the river is Natchez, Mississippi, which turned 300 years old this year.

 

The weather was great when we got here, 60’s and 70’s. But as the rest of the country got cold, so did we. We’ve had some freezing nights. During the day it’s anywhere from 45-70; lots of variation. We’ve had rain at least once a week; and when it rains here, it really rains. 

I haven't figured out the miles and costs of everything yet. (I'm a little behind on the book work.)  I'll get that figured out and post it in 2017.

Happy New Year!