Pat's New Fireplace.

Ms. Pat had been looking and talking about a Fireplace she wanted all summer.

She had in mind to put an “electric” Fireplace/Entertainment Center she found on the internet right here under our TV. She had a little trouble getting the one she wanted. Seems they are a “seasonal” item and neither Lowe's nor Costco, nor any other place would even order one for her.   Finally after she negotiated with these people, she informed me Monday that Lowe's finally had one in just like she wanted.  Uh Oh, I knew that meant a trip to Rapid City for sure. In the picture above, you can see the quilted runner that Ms. Pat made (with lots of help from Janna) for the top of this Fireplace laying over the back of the chair.


So Monday evening we came home with this BIG heavy box.  We had help loading it at Lowe's, but getting it unloaded was a different matter.  But I told Ms. Pat that I had just the solution.  I backed the pickup into the garage and placed the Motorcycle loading ramp on the tailgate and slid the box right out.  Worked like a charm but let me tell you, unboxing some of these big heavy items can be something else.  WOW, they pack them tight. Getting it all unpacked and without damaging something took some effort. Above Ms’ Pat is trying to force some of the bigger sections out of the big box! She will kill me for showing this picture of her….


When I saw the picture of this Fireplace on the internet, I never dreamed that it came in a jillion pieces and you had to put it together. Wrong !!



We got it all unpacked, blanket on the floor so we didn’t scratch it up and then it was time to try and understand those involved and complicating directions…AGAIN!!


After a few mistakes, a few minor disagreements and a lot of head scratching, it finally began going together.


Maybe we will get it...........


After a while we decided it was getting so heavy we wouldn’t be able to carry it into the living room. So we finished it right close to where it was going to sit.  Ms Megabyte2 is saying, "Here we go again!"


There.....the top and the doors are on and it's about time for the Fireplace insert…….   * Note, we were watching  Hurricane “Isaac” nearing landfall….. We have kids and many friends in and around that area. We pray for their safety….  As I type this, it made landfall at New Orleans......80 mph winds, power out…and it's NOT MOVING!  WOW!!! not good..


There it is all done, as Ms. Pat and Megabyte2 stand back and admire the finished project…… 


I’ll tell ya, that fire looks so real it's unbelievable……


Now Ms. Pat has a place for the runner she made………………..   How about that, neat huh?  Check out the Hurricane on the TV and the Hurricane Lamp on the mantel.  Very appropriate, huh?  :-)

It is a GREAT WEEK!!!!

No more projects for a while!!..Please! I need some rest…….Ya, Haha!

Thanks for stopping by.  We are off for our morning hike and Ms. Pat has dance class at 9:30.   Record heat around here...schools closing because of the heat and it's so dry! But it is unbelievably cool inside our “Cabin”. This has been a real good test. About the hottest  summer we will ever have and it is always nice and cool inside. No A/C needed!

Travel safe and stay away from “Isaac”…

Mike

This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..

Gosh, It’s So Quiet!!

I feel so relaxed and comfortable. I am so happy that we finally made our trip to Glacier. If you knew how long I had wanted to make that trip only to have something come up, you would understand. I was just about to the point where I didn’t know if we would ever make it, or if we were even supposed to make it. But we did and enjoyed it BIG TIME!!

But you know its always good to get home.  It is "So Quiet" around here! No projects going on, not even any projects in plans. Wow, that is a good feeling. Time to just relax for a while…time to enjoy all our past work and projects.  It's almost so quiet I can’t think of anything to Blog about….. now that is TOO QUIET! 

Ms. Pat is really excited about this new found hobby of “quilting” She has taken up. Caryl, at North Ranch in Arizona, helped her make a couple nice baby quilts for our Twin Granddaughters.  She enjoyed that so much she bought a Bernina Artista 165 Sewing/Embroidery machine. Let me tell you she has been giving that machine a workout.

She enjoyed watching Janna do some work on her “long arm” machine while we were visiting with them.  Ms. Pat wanted Janna show her a few things, so Janna took her down to her "quilting studio" to show her how to make a "quilt as you go" table runner.  They didn't have time to finish it, but as soon as we got home, Ms Pat couldn't wait to get to that sewing machine and finish it up. Above is the finished product.  Now I think it looks pretty darn nice, don’t you?  It will be a table runner for our new Fireplace when we get it.   Thanks Janna...Ms Pat is so grateful to you for all your help.  Then yesterday, I see that when the day was about over, she had started another small baby blanket and almost had it done.

Plus, she does her Line Dance instructing on Wednesday mornings and, because of popular demand, she added another Friday morning class.   She will now be having two classes a week for the rest of the summer. Busy Gal, plus about 7am we always take our morning hike around Stockade Lake. So there is really not much relaxing for long around here. 


I can always keep busy with an old hobby of mine that rekindled itself within me the last couple years.   I have always had this admiration of hand guns. I just love ‘em! Here is my newest prize possession..  A Ruger "sr1911" 45 cal.  It is Ruger's first venture into the 1911 market and it is going over like gangbusters. It came out over a year ago and all dealers promptly sold out their inventory. It became scarce and hard to find as all dealers quickly reordered and doubled the amount of their order.

Ruger's Automatic hand gun building plant right there in Prescott, AZ became bogged down with orders for this gun. At one time, I heard that they were over a million orders behind.  The gun quickly went up in price since many dealers had sold their stock and couldn’t get any on reorders. I mean the price went up $100.00, then even $200.00.  I have been looking and researching the gun for months, but due to its price increase I couldn’t justify the price.

Well, just a couple weeks ago, I found a brand new one up for bid on Gunbrokers by a dealer that had a couple that he was auctioning off. I waited and watched, waited some more, and finally saw a sleeper and jumped on it at the last minute while no one else was watching.  I sure didn’t steal it, but I won the auction.  I have been admiring it every since.  I can truthfully say after shooting it that I definitely love it.

It was also my first venture into the 45 Cal 1911’s.  I’m impressed!   Ms. Pat wanted to shoot it, so at that indoor range up in Kalispell, MT, I loaded it up for her and showed her how it worked.   I moved the target down to 10 yds. and she took aim.  BAMM!!  I couldn’t believe it, right in the chest cavity. She blasted 9 more rounds right in the same area.  Laid the gun down on the counter after she cleared it and says “Nice Gun!  I like it”! I want one”.  Man, is there anything this Gal can’t shoot?

So that’s about it from up here on the Hill in God’s country. Fall is definitely in the air, 41 deg when I got up this morning and we have been wearing long sleeves on our morning hike. It's still extremely dry, hasn’t rained for ages and some of the trees are beginning to turn.  Seems to early for that but I guess I say that every year.

It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!

We do have some new Followers that we would like to welcome:

Mark and Lauree have been with us for a few weeks now.
Box Canyon Blogger

Thank you all for becoming one of our Followers. We look forward to having you stop in anytime and drop by in person if you're ever in our area….

Just a quick special thanks to our dear Lord and Heavenly Father for providing our friend Sherry with a match and lung transplant recently and for providing her with the strength to go through such an operation. Last I heard from Charley, she was doing fine and walking the halls of the hospital getting stronger and stronger.   Praise the Lord and God Bless you Sherry and you too Charley. You guys been through a lot and hopefully it's paying off. 

Safe Travels, hurry back!

Mike

This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..

Back Home Sweet Home!!

Yesterday was a Sad, but Happy day. Our vacation had come to an end and it was time for Ms. Pat, Megabyte2 and me to head for home. I hate “goodbyes”, always have. It was sad to leave our good friends Mike and Janna. It was 450 miles home to Custer....a long, one-day trip but not enough to make it a 2 day trip. So, at the crack of dawn, as usual, we were ready to head back to the point from which we started. HOME.

I noticed it was 7:00am when we finally finished hooking up the truck and were leaving Mike and Janna’s place. What a beautiful time, of a beautiful day, to leave such a beautiful place, after a beautiful visit with beautiful friends. (Did I get enough "beautifuls" in that sentence?  I don't know any other way to describe it.) The weather for this entire trip has been outstanding. We were gone for just one day short of 2 weeks and never had any bad weather days…

Here we are parked in Mike and Janna’s driveway between their house and garage.

I told Ms. Pat that we would just drive until we got tired, stop for the night somewhere and get home early Wednesday. Our stop at the Flying J in Billings for fuel was our only real stop for the day. We made a couple more stops, just briefly at a wide spot along the road for a nature call and I like to walk around the RV for an inspection check.  It seemed like in no time we were in Gillette, WY. Things were rolling along so easy, I couldn’t believe what an easy trip it was.

When we turned off I-90 at Moorcroft, WY and headed for Newcastle, I felt we were almost home. I have been so impressed with this Foretravel 40’ Motorhome. The 450hp Cummins engine so effortlessly moves it along and it handles so well that I could drive it forever. I did let Ms. Pat take the wheel for a couple hours so she can stay familiar with driving this rig that looks so big but handles like a pickup truck. The powerful engine, along with the Cruise Control and automatic Allison 6 speed transmission with retarder and a tag axle make unbelievable comfort in driving it.

We pulled into our driveway and up onto our "little hill in Heaven" at 3:30pm....just in time for HAPPY HOUR!!   A great happy hour it was!  Finally I had fulfilled a dream of seeing Glacier National Park and more importantly, showing Ms. Pat Coeur d'Alene, ID.  I had been telling her I wanted to show her what I thought was the most beautiful town I had ever seen for over 25 years. We had tried to plan a trip up to that area for 10 years or more. Something always came up that prevented it, but we finally made it.  I seriously began to wonder if we would make it but I finally was able to show it to her. She now says it is the most beautiful city “she” has ever seen.  I can relax now, another mission in life accomplished…  Praise the Lord!

What a way to top off such a wonderful trip, with a few days at Mike and Janna’s. They showed us their area and we told them we were disappointed we hadn't seen a BEAR on the entire trip. Mike drove us up the side of a tall mountain, about 10 miles in hopes of showing us a BEAR. But no BEAR.  It was ironic, too, because Janna said that when they came out of their driveway to show us where they lived the day we arrived and lead us back to their house, they had seen a big black BEAR right on their driveway.   So it looked like Ms. Pat and I were BEARLESS!!   The drive up the mountain wasn't a total waste, though.  We unloaded our chairs and Happy Hour fixin's and enjoyed the beautiful scenery from the top of the mountain.

When we returned from the long trip down the mountain road and arrived back at their house., he said  “Lets go look up in the gulches behind the house again”!  Ms. Pat wanted to see a bear so bad and Mike was determined to show her one.  We scoured the gulches out back and still no bear. We were turning around starting home, when Mike squinted his eyes and said “Hmmm, what's that way over there on the side of that hill?  It's too dark to be deer."  We all turned our eyes in that direction and at first couldn't see anything. So we looked through our camera’s telephoto lens and could see 3 little black dots....hmmm, they were moving dots.

Mike slowly drove that direction and these little dots became a lot clearer. They were definitely BEAR.  Mike  said “We better walk from here so we don’t scare them off."  So we began walking towards the BEAR!  Not one BEAR, but THREE!   A mother BEAR and her two cubs.  We got to a fence 2 or 3 hundred feet back and stopped quietly to watch. They had seen us but weren’t too alarmed. However, they did slowly turn away.   I felt pretty safe as I felt my holster to make sure I had my new .45 Cal pistol and I knew Mike had his .44 but the last thing we wanted to do was shoot these bears. I told them that if that Momma Bear started running towards us they would see how fast a fat guy can run!:-) We stayed our distance and watched them as the cubs playfully followed their mother.   Janna got some great pictures with her camera and I got a few that weren’t quite so good. But we were thrilled to have finally seen a BEAR!!! Praise the Lord again! You can see the pictures of the BEAR in the slide show below. The two best one's are Janna's......I just had my little camera and she had the better telephoto lens.....

Mike and Janna in Big Timber, Montana Aug 2012

We did so much and had so much fun that again, the best way for me to show you a little more of everything at Mike and Janna’s is to include a slide show from my Web Albums. Click on it to enlarge the pictures and go picture to picture.  I wish I could tell you about each picture but I’m out of time.

Thank you so much for stopping by and thank you Father in Heaven for your many blessings,,,,,,,,,,,

It is a GREAT WEEK!!!!

Home Sweet Home!!

Mike

This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

We spent two days touring the beautiful city if Coeur d”Alene, Idaho.  The last time I visited Coeur d”Alene was back in 1980 when I was a working stiff. I said then that it was the most beautiful town I had ever seen. That is every bit as true now as it was then! I remember saying to myself back then, that I had to come back. Well, I made it.

Many years ago when Ms. Pat and I began traveling I told her that one place I had to take her was Coeur d”Alene.  We have tried to make plans to come here for over 10 years and something always came up that kept us from making the trip. I began to think I may never make it and maybe it wasn’t supposed to be. But this year we made the plans to come up here and “finally”,it really happened.


The gardens and flowers in the area are outstanding…..

The streets are all lined with flower arrangements hanging from the street lights…


Ms. Pat and I renewed our vows on a point with the beautiful Coeur d’Alene Lake in the background..


Our good friends Larry and Geri renewed their vows at this beautiful spot with us.. They were the owners and originators of the Broken Arrow Campground just 3 miles from us back home in Custer. They sold the Campground and just happened to be vacationing near Sandpoint, ID and came to tour the area with us..

We camped together at the Elks Club in Coeur d’Alene. It is a beautiful campground with 33 grass sites with water and 50amp electricity hookups. It was so good to have them there with us to see all the sites…


One of the things that always amazed me was this beautiful golf course right near downtown Coeur d’Alene……on the waters edge.


There are many beautiful golf courses in this country, but not many that have the 19th hole out in the lake…  They hit from the T-box on shore and then take a little boat out to this green and do their putting. This is what stuck in my mind as one of the great attractions of this course and I was glad to see it was still here!

I will do my best to put a slideshow here if you wish to see more pictures of the area….. 

Coeur d'Alene _ Aug 2012

Saturday morning early we headed back East towards home. We had one more stop to make and that was an important one that Ms. Pat and I were excited about. We have heard so much about our good friends Mike and Janna’s place near Big Timber, MT. We were finally going to get a chance to see it and visit with them a couple days before we make the last leg of our journey on home. We departed Coeur d’Alene about 7am and it was an easy drive 450 miles to East Boulder near McLeod, MT. We pulled in just as usual at Happy Hour………. Mike and Janna were at the end of their road waiting for us.


Here is a picture I borrowed from Janna that she took as we carefully maneuvered up their driveway… Wow, What a beautiful place!! 

It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!

Thanks for stopping by. Come on back on Wednesday and I may just have a few more pictures……..

Travel Safe and God Bless…

Mike

This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..

Pictures of Glacier National Park

Here we are!!  It's never too late..... we have been trying to get here to Glacier National Park for 10+ years. Something always came up but we kept trying and finally we made it.  It was truly worth the effort and persistence.....it is beautiful. 

You all ask for pictures and more pictures, so here they are. I took lots of pictures and put them in an Album. This is the slide show or you can click on the picture and enlarge it or go to the album and view them one by one. There are quite a few pictures and they were all taken on the famous “Road to the Sun”. 
As of today we have been gone a week. WOW....seems like we just left home a couple days ago.  The last couple nights we have been parked at the Elks Club in Kalispell, MT. We found lots of sights to see and even found one of these:

An indoor shooting range….  we both got to brush up on our shooting skills and I got to shoot my new sr1911 Ruger 45. We both loved and enjoyed this place...wish there were more like it. Pat and I were both quite impressed with the new 1911…..


Ms. Pat also found a couple of these stores.   Seems we have a new love to check out where ever we go. That’s OK.   I won’t complain because she never says a word when I check out gun stores. However, that said, I just can’t seen to develop the interest in “quilts” that she has in “guns”.
We are off today headed for Coeur d'Alene, ID.  Larry and Geri are over at Sand Point, a few miles north of Coeur d'Alene, waiting on us....so I will get out of here and just say...

 It is a GREAT WEEK!!!!

Thanks for stopping by.  Stop back Sunday and see if we aren’t well on our way home, all the time Praising our Father in Heaven for this beautiful country and all that he has provided us…
God Bless you all.
Mike

This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..

Hello from Glacier National Park!

We departed Custer just as planned on Wednesday right about 1pm and dodged Motorcycles all the way up to Spearfish. I mean Motorcycles everywhere. They were "Wall to Wall", solid lines of them and many passed me on curves with solid no passing lines and there was oncoming traffic!! What is it with these jerks??  They just go crazy. Don’t seem to have any sense at all. I sure didn’t need to get involved in an accident with one of them, that would really mess up our trip. I was a nervous wreck by the time I got through Deadwood and then when I headed North out of Spearfish, there was only a few on the road……Whew!!  I was glad to be out of that mess…..

At 6pm we pulled into the Red Trail Campground in Medora, ND.  This is the South Headquarters for the Theodore  Roosevelt National Park and home of the Medora Musical show. 


The campground was nothing to write home about, but it served the purpose and they saved us a tight little spot with electric only for a couple nights.


We were up early the next morning and began our drive through trip of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The loop is about 30 miles.  This Park is about the same size as Custer State Park where we worked for 10 summers..  The first thing we encountered was a herd of Buffalo.


They have a fairly large herd, I don’t know exactly how many they have but we are used to being around Buffalo, as we worked with them a lot at Custer State Park.


There is mile after mile of Badlands such as this.  They are a little different from the South Dakota Badlands but it's all pretty barren land..


There are lots of neat rock formations…..


This picture is from just inside the park as you look back on the little town of Medora.  The first building in the trees is the Park Welcome Center. I really enjoyed that, as they have a museum with lots of history on President Roosevelt.   I had no idea that he came out here from New York and fell in love with this rugged country and built himself a large ranch. Then he went back to New York and became president.  He kept the ranch and hired people to run it for him in his absence.

Now I’m not much of a history buff so I didn’t know a lot of this stuff. I’m sure many of you can enlighten me even more about this country and "Teddy", especially our friend “The Happy Hatter” from North Ranch in AZ. Bev was part-owner of the Little Missouri Saloon and Dining Room in Medora for 17 years. We found the Little Missouri Saloon but it was a little too early for Happy Hour. 


Another huge attraction in the town of Medora is the Medora Musical. We had heard a lot about it and were told by lots of people not to miss it. I didn’t study a lot of the history of it but it is put on by many, very talented university students from all over the country.   It didn’t start until 8:30 pm so I told Ms. Pat it was out for me, since that is mighty close to my bed time….  


This is a picture of the Burning HIlls Amphitheater where the musical is held. It is at the outskirts of Medora and is in a large canyon. It seats around 2800 people and is huge.  Ms. Pat "suggested" that I go.  She said we should go home and sleep for a couple hours, so we could stay awake for it.    Well, she slept for a couple hours and I didn’t.. I’m not a nap person, never was and probably never will be. I feel it is a nasty habit that is easy to fall I into and hard to break.  It's not for me. 


I knew there was no way I was going to get out of this peacefully, so graciously agreed to go. I also knew if I didn’t go, Geri and Larry would both kill me..   So here is a picture of us in our seats at 8:00 pm as the place started filling up. I wasn’t sure I could do this but I was gonna give it my best….. I was sure the Musical part would put me to sleep.


WOW, soon the place was filled up and the SHOW began….


This is the stage. The place is so steep that there isn’t a bad seat in the house, but we had super close seats just a few rows back..


Soon the houses all move back and it opens up to the wide open prairie and the horses come in bringing the colors. Wow, spectacular!!....as we all sang the National Anthem.


This was the band, the Coal Diggers, that played some beautiful old cowboy songs....that's my kind of music.  The speakers and the sound system were awesome, as was the lighting!!


Wow, this little gal could really play that fiddle… 


This is part of the group cutting up and joking around as the musical began..


Here is the group, the Burning Hills Singers, during one of their acts. They danced and jigged, clogged and changed outfits about a dozen times… I’m telling you it was an action packed show!  As I said before, these youngsters are "super talented"!  We were also treated to a special featured comedy act by "Etta May". 

The time went by so fast and I enjoyed it all so much that I forgot to be sleepy!!   We didn’t get home until after 11:00 pm.  I hadn’t been up that late for ages but let me tell you, I’m sure glad I went as I wouldn’t have missed it for anything!! I would highly recommend it if you're ever in the area!!

I did sleep well when I got home after the show though!! Because we had a long day ahead of us as we were moving on towards Glacier National Park.  I couldn’t believe it but after about 10 years of wanting to make this trip, we were finally on our way….. Praise the Lord!!

This morning we woke up at the Crooked Tree RV Park in Hungry Horse MT. We are just outside of the West Entrance to Glacier.  Ms. Pat is raring to go, so I gotta cut this off and get on "The Road to the Sun". Oh Boy, it is going to be a GREAT DAY!!!

It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!

Thanks for stopping by and come on back Wednesday, we might just still be in this beautiful area..

Mike

This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..

We’re Outta Here,,,,,,,Glacier NP Here We Come!

Just as you might have guessed, we are all loaded up and ready to head North. Ms. Pat has her dance class this morning and when she gets home around Noon, I’ll be cranked up and reving the engine and spinning the wheels. We hope to get close to Medora, ND tonight, so we can check out Teddy Roosevelt NP tomorrow.

When we get that checked out we will continue on West towards Glacier NP. We received a tip from the Powers family that Hwy #2 across Montana has some serious construction going on from the ND border West. So we will avoid that area by continuing West on I-94. Thanks for the tip. 

Sturgis Bike Week is in full swing up her, just as it has been for the last 72 years. This is a picture of downtown Custer I borrowed from Lee Ann.  Larry and Lee Ann go in every day and dress up in old attire and add to the atmosphere.  Not me...I stay as far away as I can. You can see how clogged up the streets are.   There is no place to park and you can’t get into any of the stores. We can’t get to the drug store or the Post Office, so we just give them the town for a week. That’s not much to ask for all the money the bikers leave with all the merchants. Each year Custer gets a little more bike traffic....mostly bikers that don’t like all the jammed up areas around Sturgis. Most of the locals just stay home or get out of town. We are doing the latter this year. Shortly after noon, we will be outta here!


Rollie and I were talking about the big change in our place in the last couple years. I found this picture taken back in May of 2010. This was just before Rollie and Gina came  and we began building the "Cabin".


Here is a picture I took just a few days ago..  Rollie is right.  The change to our place has been something beyond significant.  Doesn't even look like the same place does it?  A lot of blood, sweat, tears, LOVE (and money!) went into it but Boy-O-Boy, are we ever so proud and enjoying it..  This is beyond any dream Ms. Pat and I ever had of this place..  I believe construction is COMPLETE!! Praise the Lord!!


I even found a nice Buffalo head.. How about that?   Hung it up to set off our new porch.  The finishing touch!

It is a GREAT WEEK!!!!

By my next Blog on Sunday we should be in Glacier NP in Montana.  Come on back and I’ll bring you up to date. Keep us in your prayers for safe travel.

Travel safe and God Bless you all…

Mike

This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..