Wow. We got out. Sold everything and had a little money in the bank, three houses sold and waiting to close, and a new RV home with a pretty rough plan to take some time off, travel the country, and maybe eventually and probably find a place to live but more importantly initiatives that we’ve always had and have never left us ~ to work, learn, and play together full time as a Family ~ to run some sort of Family business, to home-school, and enjoy life to its fullest ~ together.
Things were looking up. Or down. Depending on perspective…
Crater Lake, Oregon. Our first overnight stop on our newest road of life. A new chapter… Actually more like a new book. Fiction? Horror? Philosophy? Fantasy? Less like science and more like science fiction. –Contact, the movie
Crater Lake is a volcanic crater ~ the island behind the girls is the lava dome. We were still digitalless camerawise and either didn’t take pictures leaving WA or didn’t scan them when we passed Mt St. Helens on its 20th anniversary of explosion.
Crater Lake is also one of the deepest lakes in the world ~ 3rd or 4th maybe. They couldn’t find the depth of this lake until sonar technology hit the lake last century. Cool, huh?
We pretty much had to hook it to TX because we were trying hard to get Jenn to her friends wedding in San Antonio within a few days so she could play Maid of Honor.
So she drove a lot of the way.
Welcome to Nevada ~ the next day we headed over Hoover Dam where the Nevada / Arizona state line lives. Coming down the Nevada side is steep and windy and this day it was 100+ degrees with traffic meaning we rode the brakes all the way down while the engine overheated with no air flow.
Coming across the dam, the brakes actually hit the floor and needed to be pumped to kinda work. We crawled up the other side and stopped in the closest parking area we could. Checked out everything and decided the brake fluid boiled making it not very hydraulic. After cooling off, the brakes worked but we noticed the hazards and brake lights were blowing the fuse?!? What’s the connection? We ended up in Kingman AZ troubleshooting the lights and decided we weren’t gonna figure it out there ~ so…
We got to TX illegally without brake, blinker, and hazard lights. We used the parking lights to flash oncoming traffic when we needed to. Either way, was NOT very relaxing and vacation like. Turned out we had a short in the wiring harness ~ learned this after replacing the blinker control switch on the steering column and several troubleshooting hours.
But we made it to Melissa’s wedding on time. She had a great wedding with a Hawaiian theme and a crazy looking papa.
We also visited Greg’s grandmother, Ditty who is like 92 here and is still with us today (2/27/05).
After San Antonio, we went to spend time with Jenn’s folks in Port Aransas. Port A is a little fishing town on the Texas Gulf Coast and a real vacation spot. A lot of Jenn’s extended Family was there.
We did a fishing contest out of the marina ~ that’s Jenn, Sunny, Tom, Kes, Sissy, and Jenn’s Dad. Sissy won.
And these two hoodlums vandalized and tormented the island.
and picked up some hot chicks.
One of the bene’s of Jenn’s dad working on the boats.
Is riding the boats.
and driving.
RV park swim. We told the kids to float… but we meant in the water, not above. Freaks.
After staying in Port Aransas for some time, we met Jenn’s Family north of San Antonio at her uncle’s Canyon Lake house.
That’s Jake (Jenn’s brother), Ashley (forever scarred from our house cat), Ern (forever holding the scar over our heads and blaming us for anything that goes wrong with Ashley), and Scarface.
We ended this trip to Texas in Austin to help close on two rental houses we sold there. The capitol has nothing to do with real estate transactions but those pictures are really boring and these are not.
Because we got to meet Gov. Rick Perry who took George W’s place…
in this building.