Christmas / End of Year letter - part 1 - Travels!

Since I didn't get our Christmas letter written and cards sent *before* Christmas, I am doing a post-Christmas/end-of-year letter. If you've been keeping up with our blog, this will have mostly repeat information, but I have picked out some of our favorites to share again.

2016 has been a year of:

• Travel (of course!)
• Friends and family
• Canada (yes, Canada was part of our travel, but it gets its own emphasis)
• The Wondrous Beauty given by God

Travel

I found a tool on googlemaps called "Timeline" - it recorded information about all the locations where my phone went this year. I did a little bit of tweaking to it (it had a couple of places that I had researched but we had not gone) - but it does a neat job of illustrating where we've gone, doesn't it?

We finished 2015 with a visit to White Sands National Monument. Since we had been timing our trip from DFW towards the west to avoid snow, it was funny to be in a place that looked like Miss Doozie was in the midst of lots and lots of snow!

In January, we headed out to Quartzsite where we joined with a couple of different groups. This was at the gourmet Prime Rib night with the Bluebird group.

God showed His hand of painting glorious scenery night after night with the sunsets in the desert.

This was a picture of the Bluebird's "Nest" from up above. The red arrow points to where we are parked - on one of the outer circles, with the red Jeep just to the right of the bus.

After visiting Quartzsite, in February we decided to head into California for a few weeks, using our ability to stay in Thousand Trails campgrounds for no extra charges beyond the membership dues. While there, we visited the Reagan Presidential Library.

We also stayed at the Rancho Oso Thousand Trails - in a valley above Santa Barbara. We were exploring on the other side of the stream from the campground which gave us a view back toward our campsite.

After California, by late February, we returned to Yuma, Arizona, where we enjoyed multiple tours put on by the Yuma Visitor's Bureau. This picture was taken on our "Field to Feast" tour - here are the workers harvesting butter lettuce.

The culinary students took the vegetables that we had harvested that morning from the demonstration garden at the University of Arizona and made us a wonderful lunch incorporating all the different veggies! The "Feast" part of the "Field to Feast" tour!

In March, we visited the Yuma Proving Grounds on the "Behind the Big Guns" tour with the Yuma Visitor's Center. It was very interesting and we learned a lot!

And... the last of the Yuma Visitor Center tours, we participated in "Date Night in a Date Grove", complete with a tour of the grove and packaging plant, multi-course dinner incorporating dates in each course, entertainment by a group of stringed instrument players, and good company with other visitors and Yuma-ites in attendance.

April found us back in the DFW area, staying at Lake Lewisville.

May had us heading east, starting by heading through Louisiana.

While in Georgia, we drove by the Blue Bird factory where Miss Doozie was "hatched" about 16 years ago.

Up through Virginia in May/June.

In June, we stopped overnight on one of the tunnel islands where the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel goes underwater. Miss Kitty enjoyed watching the sea birds out the window.

Miss Doozie on the tunnel island.

Still during June, after driving up the eastern shore of Virginia and Maryland, we crossed from Delaware into New Jersey on the Lewes-Cape May Ferry.

July 4 - After visiting in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we were able to be "part" of the Canadaigua Fourth of July parade - well... the parade was going the other way, but we played patriotic songs on our musical horn while driving up the main drag and folks seemed to enjoy our participation!

During July, we had planned to stop overnight in Rhode Island, but decided that we could "count" having visited there if we fueled up Miss Doozie instead. We spent significantly more money there than we would have on a campground fee!

Beautiful parking spot overlooking Ossipee Lake at Patti's former co-worker's, Dennie's, family camp.

By late July, we headed on up to Vermont where we visited the Shelburne Museum...

And represented the Christian Fellowship BOF on the Row at the Escapade rally. Since we were appointed while we were in Quartzsite in January to be the representatives at this event, attending the Escapade in Vermont was the driving factor toward our travel plans for the summer.

Dwayne driving on our way to Maine. We had originally planned, after the Escapade in Vermont, to head toward Toronto to visit some of Patti's former co-workers, and then back down into the U.S..... but... we determined that this would have us heading roughly toward Dallas in August - NOT a good time to be in Dallas when we are trying to avoid really hot (and really cold) weather. So, we decided to visit the Maritime, Atlantic, and eastern provinces of Canada.

Brief stop at L.L. Bean in Rockport, ME.

 <<< in between here is our trip in Canada --- more pictures from there in Canada's part of the letter! See "part 3" >>>

We acquired an Instant Pot - a 7-in-1 cooking tool. So far, we've used it as a pressure cooker and slow cooker. We are still learning how to use it, but think it is quite useful!

After coming back into the US, in October, we headed to Iowa to get work done on our leveling jacks. After that was completed, we visited the Herbert Hoover Presidential Museum.

By late October, we were back in DFW where we found the Hickory Creek Corps of Engineers park that we really liked....

"We" liking it included Miss Kitty who enjoyed walking around and smelling all the interesting scents.

In early December, we headed south, crossing onto the barrier island off of Corpus Christi on a free ferry. You may be able to notice Miss Doozie towering over the other vehicles on the ferry. She essentially got her own side of the ferry (there were no other cars next to her on her right side).

As we started west, we stopped in Langtry to see the place where Judge Roy Bean conducted the Law west of the Pecos!

Links to other parts of this letter:

Part 2: Friends and Family

Part 3: Canada

Part 4: The Wondrous Beauty given by God