Driving to Montana (Deer Lodge, MT)

Before we left Texas in early May, we spent a week in Bridgeport, TX.  Below is a picture of Weatherford's county courthouse.  I never get tired of seeing this building.

We got a nice site, but it was not full hook-ups.  Still, the cats enjoyed their time outdoors and we found the quiet spot away from campers celebrating the lockdown lift.

Our biggest surprise upon arriving was seeing how high the lake was in comparison to our last visits.  The first time we came here, the lake was a good 20 feet below this dock (bottom right).  Now, the dock is five inches below the water level.  Quite a difference!

Our walks around Bay Landing Thousand Trails were quite entertaining.  We saw a family of Canada Geese near the fishing pond along with four ducks that were always together no matter what they were doing.  We saw quite a few snakes swimming around in the pond and after talking to one fisherman and finding out that someone counted 18 of them hiding under a tree, I kept my distance!😬  Between wildlife sightings and flowers blooming, we had some nice walks while we were there.

Finally, we felt it was time to get back on the road and see some new sights.  I know I was ready to see some snow-covered mountains.  Dan was able to get reservations at each stop.  His biggest headache was trying to steer clear of severe thunderstorms moving through the midwest states.  He did an excellent job because we saw very little rain and drove through some windy areas.

Montana!

Hitch has become quite a lap cat during our travels.  He can spend hours sleeping on us.  I'm not so sure our legs agree with his long-term sleeping arrangements.

Zzzzz

After two 8-hour days of driving, we were happy to spend two days relaxing at Terry Bison Ranch.  We were greeted by two sleeping cats inside the ranch's store/office area.  It looks like they had a tough day at the ranch.

Zzzz....Zzzz

This is the first time we have seen the peacocks at the ranch.  They were busy guys making lots of noise with their mating calls.  Have you seen the movie "UP"?  Kevin sounds just like them in high volume! 🤣

The peacocks even showed up one morning in the campground wandering from site to site.  Only one of our cats saw the big birds go by and I swear he was drooling.😺

1. Goats new play area 2. Artwork
3. Llamas 4. Peacocks visiting campers

This white turkey was quite a character.  I was kneeling down to take a photo of the bison artwork when he walked into view, fluffed his feathers, and stood there waiting for me to take his picture.  I took one photo and started walking off only to realize that he was following me around the bison, so I took another photo of his other side.  He seemed satisfied with the attention and finally moved on to another person walking by.

Left profile?  Right profile?

My favorite part was seeing the new colts this year.  Both had some beautiful markings.  I tried to get a better photo of the black one, but he or she wasn't in the mood for putting up with paparazzi that day.

Before we left Wyoming, we restocked our groceries for our 14-day quarantine in Montana.  Back on the road, Hitch once again surprised us by sleeping in-between Dusty and Max.  He is just full of surprises on this trip.

On The Cutting Board

Before we left Bridgeport, TX we drove to Lawton, OK to see our daughter's family and to give the girls a quilt each.  We had exchanged information on what we had been doing lately and to make sure none of us have been infected.😷  Such strange times we are having when we have to be careful just to visit family.  It has been 18 days and all of us are still healthy.

Bry stopped by to receive her son's baby quilt and to visit.  I'm sorry we will not be there when our great-grandson arrives, but we really do not want to be in our coach in Oklahoma's hot July weather not to mention Tornado season!

Our granddaughters seem quite happy with their new quilts.  The two younger ones took their naps with their quilts and claimed they slept better with them.  They are such sweethearts.

One of my brothers asked that if he paid for a quilt would I make him one from the same SW pattern I have been sharing on FB.  I finished the blocks during the lockdown.  Posted this photo of the top's arrangement in a FB group.  One quilter pointed out that the three blocks on top looked alike and I might want to consider switching the top and bottom blocks around.

I'm glad she pointed it out because this arrangement looks a lot better.  I did not want his feet to hang out so I added a little more length by sewing one row of Delectable Mountains to the top.  This came out better than I had imagined on paper!

Now, I need to get fabric for the backing and decide how I am going to quilt this one.  By machine, it will go faster.  By hand, it will be more personable, but slow going.  Well, I have time to think about it since I cannot go shopping until our quarantine ends on June 1 when Montana goes into Phase 2.  I can barely wait to go check out the local quilt shops starting with the one here within walking distance!

In the meantime, I am working on my quilt-as-you-go blocks which has been put aside for too long.  

Happy Quilting!

Back In Washington (Spokane, WA)

💗Thank you for your kind words.

After leaving Colorado and Squirrel behind, we stopped in Wyoming at Terry Bison RV Ranch for a couple of days.  This time I was able to see the camels.  Last time they had been in a larger field and were not cooperating by grazing near the fence.  This guy looks like he is trying to push the fence down so he can get to that greener grass on the other side.

I just love the converted chicken house.  Doesn't Mr. Rooster look quite proud of his home?

This is the first time Dusty has climbed a tree.  I think he had so much energy stored up from our long days of travel that he super power to run and leap into a tree.  I told him good job and he should do that more often....never mind that he is only two feet off the ground....he was quite proud of himself.

Hardin, MT

Weather was very iffy from day to day.  We monitored weather apps on our phones and watched the local weather as well as national weather.  We must have waited out 4 different cold fronts during our travels from Texas and Washington State.  Except for some high winds one day where we saw a semi-truck jack-knifed and landed on its side, this was the worse part of our winter drive near Bozeman, MT.

We made it to Spokane in time for Dan to say good-bye to his ailing 90 year old father.  He spent the last couple of weeks helping his sister make arrangements and to clean out their parent's apartment.

During the long hours Dan was gone, I spent my time spring cleaning, sewing, and getting the cats out for walks.

Spring as usual for this area could not make up its mind to warm up or let winter stay a little longer, but the flowers were blooming despite the cold windy days.

I'm still learning about what all my new laptop has to offer along with the latest software I recently downloaded.  I just discovered this new editing process in my Photoshop.  This is all one photo.  I thought I would share my first try.

Here is the original:

Which one looks better?

On The Cutting Board
I am back to sewing and I managed to finish a few UFOs.  Okay, more than a few...I finished 12 Happy Campers.  I will try to list them soon and share some better photos.

I decided to tackle the quilt that refused to go together and won the battle.  Well, sort of...I sewed the blocks that did come out.  Because I ran out of three fabrics due to bad measuring instructions, I decided to finish the quilt with a large border. I plan to start appliqueing birds and a flower on the top border.

 This was a good opportunity to try my new 'Round The Corner' ruler.  I had tried making round corners once before using a bowl.  The quilt's corners came out very lopsided.  Needless to say, the border had to be redone.  I was a little nervous trying this ruler, but it worked quite well.  I had no problem centering the curve on the corners.

Tomorrow is a travel day.  We are moving to Crescent Bar, WA near Wenatchee.  I better get started on my applique project before I have to start packing things up for our move.
Happy Quilting!

Traveling Cross Country(Spokane, WA)

We made it to our destination - Spokane, WA.  I did not realize how much I missed seeing snow covered mountains until we crossed over into New Mexico's northeast corner near Raton.  Seeing the mountains on the horizon made me feel like I have come home.

Rest area - Trinidad, CO

We are not the only ones happy to be settled in one spot for a couple of weeks.  Four days into our cross-country travel, the cats started caterwauling their protest.  Max started the protest.  Soon Hitch would jump onto the back of my chair to howl in my ear while Dusty walked around my feet mewing his protest.

Time for a nap - Squirrel

Only Squirrel seemed content to sit and sleep in my lap.   He was in and out of my lap throughout the whole trip.  None of our cats use to ride near the front while we were traveling.  Usually our sofa is filled with loose items, but now I set it up for the cats.  Don't they look happy?  Well, for the moment anyway.  ;)

Nap time

With all the protesting, we stayed an extra night at Lathrop State Park with hope that this would settle the cats down.  They went out for walks, soaked up the sun, and ate grass.  According to Max, it was not long enough.  So, the protests continued on down the road.

Beautiful view from our site in Lathrop SP

We stayed one night at Terry Bison Ranch in Wyoming.  We ate dinner in their restaurant.  We were worried about finding something to eat when we read that they would substitute any flavored hamburger sandwich with a veggie burger.  I wish more restaurants offered this kind of substitute.  It would give us more of a variety than just the vegan plate.

After a delicious dinner, we walked around the ranch.  This ranch is setup to entertain the whole family with train rides, horseback riding, small carnival rides, and a variety of animals.  Here's a few photos of the ranch's animals that I manage to get during our short walk before sunset.

I say it looks like we have some visitors.  Let me get a closer look...

HELLO!

Do you like my new hair style?

Hey Neighbor!

The colt was my favorite.  He was full of energy when we were watching him.  He was moving so fast that I could not get a clear photo of him.  I think he wore out his Mom with his bucking and kicking in circles around her.  Maybe he made her dizzy.  I know I would have been if my kids did that around me.

New colt giving Mama a kiss

After we left the ranch, the weather started turning colder with precipitation.  Rain turned to slush.  Slush turned to snow and visibility became dangerously low for the highway.  We decided to stop at a pull-off for lunch.  According to AccuWeather, the cold front would blow through within a couple of hours.  We had our fingers crossed since we really did not want to spend the night in the middle of nowhere.  The snow did stop and we were able to get back on the road...for a short time....

We go outside now?

We did not get far when we reached the Sheriff's department and State Troopers blocking both lanes while clearing a rolled over truck from the highway.  By the time we drove by, we could not tell if more than one car had been in the accident.  We can only hope the travelers made it through the accident with minimum injuries.  

We were south of Kaycee when the snow started again with a vengeance this time. We had planned to spend to night in Sheridan visiting with friends, but between the snow, side winds, and the accident, it was time to call it a day.  The snow did not stick, but we found out later that the highway south of Buffalo was closed due to bad weather.  We made the right choice to stop early

Biiiig snowflakes!  Kaycee, WY

I wish I could say our trip was uneventful with a relaxing time despite the weather issues.  The motorhome had quite a few problems.  Two major ones were the exhaust brakes were not working and a hose burst to our air bags.  Dan was able to fix the exhaust brake problem.  The air bag leak was more major and we were very lucky it stopped working while we were parked at a truck stop.  Dan called it our lucky breakdown because if it had happened on the mountain pass in the construction zone, we would have been blocking the pass for hours.  When the air bags are deflated, the motorhome does not move.  I'm not sure if we would have stopped suddenly or if the motorhome would have coasted to a stop.  Not something I would want to experience that is for sure.  Both were a very scary thought  of what could have happened while we were on the mountain passes.  Dan was able to get a mobile RV/Truck service to repair and replace the burst hose within a couple of hours. 

I'm happy to say we made the rest of the trip without any major mechanical problems or cat protesters.

On The Cutting Board

New design - Dreamcatcher

Due to Squirrel's sudden change of heart to spend more time in my lap, I wasn't able to do as much sewing.  I tried to make up the time in the evenings, but that wasn't easy to do either with cats wanting out, trying to prep things for evening, dinner, and just too tired to even look at a project.

Road Runner

Anyway, I did finish the custom order for our Pensacola friends.  I'm very happy with the Road Runner.  He came out very well.  I had to be careful with making the morning glories.  I love making them so much that they would have been climbing all over the trailer.  Just like they do in real life!

Southwest Vintage Trailer

Making this design was a lot of fun.  You can bet I'll be making more!  In the meantime, I need to get back to all the others that were suppose to be done by the time we reached Spokane.  I hope to have some photos of progress to post soon.
Happy Quilting!